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Rev. D. O. Ckowley, LL.D. 



SONGS, SONNETS 



AND 



ESSAYS 



SONGS AND ESSAYS 



REV. d/oSKc 



V 

CROWLEY. LL.D. 

San Francisco, California 

SONGS AND SONNETS 

BY 

REV. T. L. CROWLEY, O. P. 

Aquinas College, Columbus, Ohio 



PREFACE BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, LL.D. 
Minister of the United States to Denmark 




BOSTON 

THOMAS J. FLYNN & CO. 

PUBLISHERS 



r^ir>^ 



:^^ 



xV> 



Copyright, 1912, 

By Rev. T. L. Crowlhy, O. P. f 

I 

( 



£CI.A3274G8 



FOREWORD 



REV. r. L. CROWLEY, O.P. 



TN submitting this collection of poems to the public, 
I am not miconscious of my literary limitations. 
The natural misgivings which come to every tyro in 
this field of effort are keenly experienced by me. I 
have yielded, however, to the wishes of my friends, 
and, encouraged by them, venture to offer my first 
effusions in a collective form. 

My lyrics and sonnets have appeared at different 
intervals in Catholic periodicals. They were written 
during the busy clays of my student life, when there 
was little leisure to bestow mature thought and labor 
upon them. 

Another motive for this publication is to give per- 
manency to the poems which my uncle, the Rev. D. 
O. Crowley, had written in his earlier years. From 
childhood I learned to love the music of his verses, 
and the publication of them now affords me an 
opportunity of manifesting both my admiration and 
affection. 

The permission of my very reverend superior has 
been granted for the issuance of this volume. Au- 
thorization from P'ather Crowley will be found in a 
fac-simile letter on another page. Any comment 
fiom my pen on the character of the man or the merit 
iii 



FOREWORD 



of his writings I am confident would fail in its pur- 
pose. A scholarly appreciation of his work and 
worth has been forwarded to me by a distinguished 
author from the Pacific coast, which I here append : 

" There is no man so splendidly loyal as he to whom love 
of country is a birthright and devotion to liberty, a passion 
and principle handed down from father to son through gen- 
erations of those who struggled and suffered for that freedom 
which they know to be the inalienable right of themselves 
and their children unto all generations. The Patriotism that 
is tear-wet and blood-moistened alters not, whatever circum- 
stances the years may bring. He who possesses it may be 
an exile from the country of his birth, but his unforgetting 
heart forever will turn back to his native land in love and 
longing, and no year can come to him so late that his eyes 
will not grow dim at thought of fair places that his childhood 
knew. 

" And he will be a better citizen of his adopted land be- 
cause of this love of country that was his divine heritage. 
Patriotism, it is true, will tolerate no divided allegiance, but 
again and again we see demonstrated that it may bear a double 
allegiance right proudly. High and fair in American history 
are written the names of those who have loved this country 
most because they first loved a land that is far away beyond 
wide waters. 

" So it is that in his few poems in this little book the 
memory of Rev, D. O. Crowley — Father Crowley, as those 
of us who know and love him are most pleased to think of 
him — turns back in affectionate longing to ' The Green Isle 
of the Celt,' where 

' The zephyrs, softly breathing, 

Waft a fragrance o'er the plains, 
And the fadeless ivy's wreathing 

Round the ancient, mouldering fanes.' 

"Splendid American that he is; beloved by young and 
old, by Catholic and Protestant, Jew and gentile. Christian 
and pagan ; beloved of these because of good deeds tliat 



FOREWORD 



have known no creed distinction, to me there seems some- 
thing beautiful in Father Crowley's tender yearning unto the 
dear home of his childhood. His is no divided allegiance 
of patriotism, but a double allegiance equally glorious, whether 
told in dreams of an olden time that come in quiet hours, or 
written in valiant striving for the welfare of the home of later 
years. It is love of Ireland emphasized in righteous deeds 
for America. 

"The music of the verse appeals. As much might be 
said of much current poetry that has little or naught save its 
music to recommend it, but here there is more that needs the 
saying. In the lines, and between the lines for him who 
reads understandingly, is written deep devotion for the Green 
Isle of the author's birth, indignant sorrow for the many 
grevious wrongs its children have endured, and intense long- 
ing for the good day yet to come when the long night of 
Erin's brutal subjection shall terminate in the bright dawn of 
her freedom. 

" Herein are poems that should appeal to the sons and 
daughters of Ireland, whether here or there, and they should 
appeal, too, to all who deem that love of country, wherever 
and however expressed, is a sentiment to be held dear by all 
who believe that He has placed the nations here to work out 
His purpose unto the ' far off, divine event to which the 
whole Creation moves.' 

" I wish this book, of which these verses contribute a part, 
much prosperity in its voyage over the somewhat stormy 
waters of literature, and I fancy it will have it, for — it 
deserves it." 

A. J. Waterhouse. 
Berkeley, California, 

April, igi2. 




^^^ — . 





PREFACE 

r^OVENTRY PATMORE says that "poetry is 
^-^ essentially catholic and affirmative, dealing 
only with the permanent facts of nature and human- 
ity and interested in the events and controversies of 
its own time only so far as they evolve manifestly 
abiding fruits." 

Now, as one of the most essentially catholic and 
affirmative qualities of life, is religion, it follows that 
religion is one of the most fitting subjects for poeti- 
cal treatment. If a lyric is an expression of an 
emotion, religion cannot be cast out from the essen- 
tial motives of the poet who sings. It is almost an 
axiom among the modern poets that poetry should 
never be didactic — that it should never teach directly 
— and that since the religious poet as a rule, teaches 
directly, he has really no reason to be. One may 
admit — that the man who pretends to teach had bet- 
ter confine himself to prose. Plato, for instance, 
would have been very dull as a teaching poet. Even 
Dante becomes wearisome when he tries to force 
dogma into musical verse. Milton is insufferably 
uninteresting when he attempts to do this, too, and 
Pope, with all his smoothness, becomes a mere maker 
of proverbs, when he assumes the character of a 
pedagogue. 

Admitting this, then, poets like Father Crowley, 

the author of this little volume I have the honor to 

present to the public, are all the more legitimately 

exercising their vocations when they express the 

vii 



VI 11 PREFACE 



emotions of religion, the passing shades of sentiment 
which result from those deep convictions which spring 
from the sources of spiritual life. 

If one assumes that poetry is a criticism of life, 
life cannot be the object of criticism in the fullest 
sense, unless the religious side of life is taken into 
consideration. To the religious man all things are 
sacramental. The aspect of nature is real it is true, 
but its varying shades are only at best symbols of 
more essential things. You may call the color of 
the rose an accident of beauty ; but it must be re- 
membered that the real substance of the rose, per- 
sistent and perennial, is still more beautiful. It is 
unnecessary for me to point out examples of such 
beauty in this book — they are easily found on every 
page. Nature and religion poetically have become 
one. Beauty is faith and faith beauty. In prefacing 
the book of a Dominican by these words, I am safe 
in saying that if a rigid theologian might cavil at 
these phrases, the most orthodox philosopher will not. 

Should the reader, following a vulgar tradition 
which is becoming outworn, be tempted to pass by 
this volume because it consists of religious, aspira- 
tional and reflective verse, let me stay his steps with 
the assertion that there is not here one line that be- 
trays an affectation or a pose. 



Vn 



INDEX 



By rev. D. O. CROWLEY, LL.D. 

The Mountain-Girt Valley of Beare 

The Sweet and Golden West 

Decoration Day . 

Erin .... 

The Coliseum 

Clountreem . 

Ma Colleen Dhas Crutha Na Mo 

An Old Man's Soliloquy 

St. Patrick's Day 

The Songs of Our Land 

ROBARD .... 

MoRiY Oge 

Law and Liberty . 

Farewell. My Native Home 

Returning to Erin 

Hurrah for the Sword and the Rifle 

The Exile's Return 

An Exile's Prayer 

Christmas Memories 

The Green Isle of the Celt 

Mountain Streams 

Joseph Cleburne's Grave 

The Tocsin of War 

Essays .... 

The Poet Priest. Personal Recollections of 

John B. Tabb . 
James Ryder Randall. Poet Laureate of the 

federacy, Patriot and Journalist 
ix 



Rev. 
Con- 



Page 

I 

4 
6 



23 

24 
27 

3^ 
32 

34 
37 
40 

43 

45 
47 
49 
51 

52 
55 

57 



INDEX 



By rev. T, L. CROWLEY, O.P. 

Page 

Beyond 95 

The Flowers of Present Love .... 96 

Awakened Joy 98 

Magdalen 99 

Friend of Our Exile 100 

The Azure of Remembrance . . . . ioi 

Rabboni 102 

Nature's Lessons 103 

My Offering 104 

The Triple Legacy 105 

The Crater of Calumny 107 

The Tender Love of Christ .... 108 

The Holy Name no 

My Mother's Eyes in 

An Autumnal Musing 112 

Life's Canopy 114 

Prepare Your Hearts 115 

A Nobler Conquest 117 

The Deathless Gift 118 

A Brighter Flame 120 

Easter Dawn 121 

A Sweeter Harp 123 

The One Sweet Day 124 

The Wisdom of the Cross 126 

The Seasons 127 

The Christian Sacrifice 129 

Mother of Sorrows 13° 

An Awakening 132 

The Sanctuary Lamp 133 

The Silver Sheaf 135 

The Spiritual Dynasty of Pain . . .136 
To THE Garden of Heaven . . . .138 



INDEX 



XI 



Lazarus 

Come to Thy Throne . 

In The Garden of the Heart . 

Millers at Life's Stone 

The Spices of a New Life . 

The Month of May 

Life's Calvaries .... 

Companion of Our Way 

Confidence 

The Vision of the West 
Life's Truest Friend . 
The Symphony of the Saints 
The Better Quest 

My Idol 

The Guerdoned Brides of Christ 
The Hem of His Gar:\ient . 
The Kingly Guest 
The Fleeting Breath of Fame . 
Rest 



Page 

141 
142 
143 

T46 

148 
149 

151 
152 

154 
156 
158 
160 
161 
163 
165 
167 
169 



SONGS AND ESSAYS 

BY 

REV. D. O. CROWLEY. LL.D. 

San Francisco, California 



THE MOUNTAIN-GIRT VALLEY 
OF BEARE 

\1 7HEN fanned by the halcyon breezes 

That down from the Indian Isles, 
Career o'er Caribbean waters, 

Where summer eternally smiles, 
I've dreamt of thee, sweet, sunny Erin, 

And oft-times away o'er the foam, 
In spirit I lovingly wandered 

The haunts of my boyhood — my home ; 
For, oh ! there is naught in the tropics 

In beauty, with thee can compare, 
Loved land of the bard and the Brehon,— 

Sweet mountain-girt Valley of Beare. 

Away where the calm Sacramento 
Rolls down over nuggets of gold, 

And thousands of freemen are herding 
Their flocks by the mountain and wold, 



SOiVGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

I've sauntered when twilight was brooding, 

And sipped the delicious perfume, 
Of oranges, limes, and bananas, 

And trellised vines bright in their bloom ; 
But oh, than the fair Occidental, 

There is one land I cherish more dear, — 
'Tis the sweet, happy home of my boyhood. 

The mountain-girt Valley of Beare. 




I've roamed thro' the Yosemite Valley, 

And gazed with excessive delight 
On torrents that there, 'neath the sunshine, 

Leap down inaccessible height ; 
I've climbed the Sierras' proud summits. 

And basked in the sunshine and glow 
Of a beautiful calm Indian summer, 

By the waters of lonely Tahoe ; 



SOA'GS, SONiVETS AND ESSAYS 3 

But oh ! to my eye thou art fairest 
Of all the fair climes of the sphere, 

To my heart thou art nearest and dearest — 
Sweet mountain-girt Valley of Beare. 

When the day-god's last lustre is gilding 

The slopes of the grand Golden State, 
And the modern Argonaut's fleet ships 

Come home through the famed Golden Gate, 
I stray o'er the new El Dorado, 

The land of the free and the blest, 
And sigh for that Emerald Island 

That gems the Atlantic's white crest ; 
For fate, so relentless and cruel. 

Doth cause me to linger still here, 
And pine for my home by the ocean — 

The mountain-girt Valley of Beare. 




SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 




THE SWEET AND GOLDEN 
WEST 

'T^HEY talk of the beauteous Dardanelles, 

And the sunny land of Spain ; 
Of scenes where primeval Nature dwells 

Away by the Indian main ; 
But the plastic germ of empire great 

Wakes hope in every breast, 
Where a future grand looms o'er the land 

Of the sweet and golden West. 

I have roamed by sunny southern seas, 

Thro' breathing groves of palm, 
Where flight of birds alone disturbs 

The blue ethereal calm ; 
But the vernal vest of the glowing West 

Is fairer far to me 
Than the sun-robed South with its coral isles 

And cloudless canopy. 



SOA'GS, SOA^NETS AND ESSAYS 5 

The sun there smiles on a hundred isles 

Of the greenest and loveliest hue, 
Ere his rays are spent in the Occident 

Where he bids the world adieu ; 
And Sierras tall from a hundred peaks 

Their darkling shadows throw 
O'er a virgin land where glades expand 

And beautiful rivers flow. 

Those sombre dells where the wild deer dwells, 

And the rude red Indian roams, 
Are yielding now to the white man's steel, 

And the white men build their homes 
Over Indian graves where the Madrone waves 

And sunbeams love to rest 
When evening shades steal thro' the glades 

Of the sweet and golden West. 




SOA^GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 




DECORATION DAY 

\\J E pray for the fond ones whose hfe-blood 

On liberty's altar was shed ; 
And deck with green garlands and flowers 
The graves of the patriot dead ; 

Who stood by the Union's proud banner, 

With sabre and rifle in rest, 
When her cause looked as gloomy and cheerless 

As storm-clouds blocked in the West ; 

Who marched thro' the red field of battle, 
And breasted the brunt of the fight. 

When the guns of Rebellion outrattled 
Death-hail against Justice and right. 

Weave, weave your gay garlands, young maidens. 

And make no distinction today, 
'Twixt those who went down in the blue ranks 

And those who fell under the gray. 



SOJVGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

The Patriot, Poet and Statesman, 

Long, long shall their virtues proclaim 

In the fond-feeling heart of the Nation, 
Upbuilt is their temple of fame. 

And there it shall stand forth unshaken, 
Defying wreck, ruin and change, 

Adown thro' the vistas of ages 

While Time on his orbit doth range. 




SOJVGS, SONNE 7^S AND ESSAYS 



ERIN 

T O ! the nations are advancing! 

Wilt thou not with them keep pace ? 
Art thou dead, or art thou sleeping 

In the tyrant's vile embrace ? 
Awake ! arise ! inglorious slumber 

Ne'er should pall thy queenly brow — 
Hark ! Republics, sunward soaring, 

Fondly call thee onward now. 

There are paths abundant ever 

Through which dauntless souls may tread 
On the sunbright fame and freedom. 

Though they be with carnage spread. 
Through such pathways young Columbia 

Sought relief from tyrant's sway — 
Only steel such freedom giveth 

As doth wreath her brow today. 

Had she trusted — vainly trusted — 

Moral force to right her wrong, 
Still her fate were thine, dear Erin, 

Bound in abject slavery's tongs, 
Nature loves her for her action, 

And hath strewn with bounteous hnnd 
Golden harvests from Alaska 

Southward to Haytian strand. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

O'Connell, Grattan, Clay and Everett, 

Place them in a province each — 
Bid them bring back Ireland's freedom 

With their magic powers of speech. 
All their eloquence and logic 

Backed by oratorio art 
Would not rend the tiniest rivet 

Of her festering gyves apart. 

Heed not, then, those slavish doctrines 

That denounce and deem not good 
Freedom won through strife of battle, 

Fields of carnage, streams of blood ; 
Thus did Tell, on Switzer Mountains, 

Hurl his land's enslavers back, 
Ghastly death profusely 'round him, 

Glorious Freedom on his track. 

Strike ! nor wait until tomorrow ; 

Strength is wasting, life is frail ; 
What you picture for the future 

Bring within the present's pale. 
He who climbs to lofty station 

Dreams not strength and youth away ; 
Heaven is sure to crown his purpose 

Who doth work as well as pray. 



THE COLISEUM 



Part I 



T T EARKEN, ye bards, I sing a noble theme, 

The pride of Rome, the wondrous CoHseum : 
Whose aged ruins in tow'ring boldness stand, 
Their shadows casting o'er a storied land ; 
Whose ancient splendor e'en surpassed the height 
Of fact's far range, or fancy's chainless flight. 

Ere yet the Christian sun of modern Rome 
Had shed effulgence on St. Peter's dome, 
The Coliseum, six hundred feet in length. 
In width five hundred, peerless in its strength 
Of pillar 'd arches, tow'rs and turrets high, 
Reared its dimensions to the sapphire sky. 
Caesar spoke, Augustus laid its plan ; 
Titus finished what Augustine began ; 
Tier after tier uprose in doric style. 
Out-soaring the pyramids of the mystic Nile ; 
And its vast awning when at morn outrolled, 
Flashed in the sun, an undulating sea of gold. 



12 SOA'GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

Its cushioned theatre of elliptic mould, 
Glittered with lamps inlaid with Syrian gold ; 
With precious rubies, culled from eastern mines, 
And sacred pendants torn from Juda's shrines. 
The broad arena in the centre stood, 
Crimson and reeking with barbarian blood, 
Drawn by the lion's fang, the lictor's dart, 
And acting like incense on the Roman heart. 
Ten times ten thousand gazers, breathing low. 
Watched with impatience the descending blow 
That forced some spirit from its mortal zone. 
And sent it trembling to its Maker's throne ; 
Then call'd and clamor'd till Orphean strains 
Stilled the fierce current in their fiery veins. 

Void of humanity, it seemed their aim 

To drug with human woes their draught of fame, 

They, with a force which uncurbed passion lends, 

Oppressed the world, to further private ends ; 

And so, at length, impelled by savage greed, 

Outstepped the limit Nature's laws decreed. 

And wrung from sacred heaven that direful fate. 

Which humbled Rome in ail her strength elate. 

Alaric came to vent with sword and fire, 

On Pagan heads the Lord's avenging ire ; 

God's Chast'ning rod was he, surcharged with doom. 

That smote those savage games in all the pride of bloom. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 13 



Part II 

\ 17 HEN Luna shed her melancholy light 

O'er this vast ruin, and peoples all the night. 
With spectral forms, the wandering poet's brain 
Fills the wide space with yelling crowds again ; 
Creative fancy olden acts renew, 
And former scenes come thronging to his view. 
His bosom heaves, he sheds a pitying tear 
For poor barbarians, brought from Finland here ; 
Torn from their native springs, their forest home, 
To glut the cravings of licentious Rome. 
Young Christians kneeling on the crimsoned sands, 
Raise to high heaven their wistful eyes. In bands, 
Scorning alike the emperor's smile and frown. 
Reject they the ermine for the martyr's Crown. 

Where once the sands were dyed with human blood, 

Now hostile navies sweep along the flood. 

He sees them grapple, whirl their flashing spears. 

Tumultuous shouts are sounding in his ears ; 

Anon the galleys, red with human gore, 

Sink 'neath their crews, alas ! to rise no more. 

And drowning wretches, crying for aid aloud, 

Receive but jeers from the encircling crowd. 



14 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

The floods recede, and vernal woods appear ; 
Wherein are crouched the " forest king " and bear ; 
Where flitting birds of gaudy plumage sing, 
And sparkling fountains from their sources spring, 
Where the rich lawns mirror the countless dyes 
That fleck the azure of Italia's skies. 



Part III 

T^HUS, the young poet, through fancy's golden maze, 
Roams, laughs and weeps mid scenes of other days ; 
Now sips the cup of visionary joy. 
Brimful of hope and bliss without alloy. 
But as the joy that most substantial seems 
Breaks from our grasp, like sparks from meteor beams, 
Alas, doth bliss evanish ! The shrill screams 
Of the night owl arouse him from his dreams. 
And starting up he sees the silent moon 
Gaze softly down the vast expanse of ruin ; 
Then slowly spake he — thus his stanzas ran : 
" How frail, how faulty is the work of man ! 
How fleeting joy, how fickle power and health ! 
How false is pride and how deceiving wealth ! 
You Celean hifls as full and firmly stand 
As when just moulded by the Maker's hand, 



SONGS, SOAWETS AND ESSAYS 15 

The rushing Tiber flows with force unspent, 

As when Rome's founder gazed from out his tent 

On its bright bosom, spreading far and wide, 

Or led his flocks along its cooling tide ; 

While this huge wreck, the climax of man's power, 

'Neath Time's corroding breath, is wasting hour by hour. 

Where stilted Trajan reared his haughty head, 
The busy spider spins his glossy thread ; 
And hooting owls in nightly broils engage. 
Where proud Com modus reddened into rage : 
The swiftly swallows, the silent sable bat, 
Usurp the arches 'neath which Titus sat. 

Ye Kings of Commerce, ye who gaze with pride, 
On fertile acres, stretching far and wide ; 
Who would oppress the wealth-producing poor. 
Ponder the fate of those who ruled of yore. 
From Obe's tide to Britain's western shore. 

Observant man who studies Nature's laws 
And deeply thinks this one deduction draws : 
All works of Art, no matter how sublime, 
Shrink from the touch of all-subduing time ; 
W'hile those of Nature — ocean, dale and steep. 
Sky, sun and stars — the Godhead's impress keep. 



i6 



SOA^GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



Then how account for Rome's unequalled age, 
Her sisters' fall illumines History's page ? 
Greece, Carthage, Antioch, Syria, — all 
Who lived ere she was conqueror of Gaul, 
Have slunk beneath the fertile fibrous plains, 
But she of all the ancient throng remains ? 

A simple Cross, the symbol sign of Truth, 

Though old in years, in strength a wondrous youth. 

Is poised whereon ' Colossal of the sun.' 

The culminating height of Rome's dominion shone ; 

And, after centuries of Mortal strife. 

Reveals the mystery of Rome's immortal life." 




SOA'GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS IJ 



CLOUNTREEM 

T KNOW a dell where torrents well 

All crystal, cool and clear ; 
Where swallows wing and throstles sing 

Throughout the circling year ; 
And sweet perfume of flowers in bloom 

Makes fragrant all things there. 

A streamlet strays from creeks and bays 

Down o'er its emerald leas, 
And, as it flows, weird tales of woes 

'Tis babbling to the breeze 
That flits and sings, and wildly rings, 

Like minstrels in the trees. 

Ah ! when a youth, I loved in sooth. 
Among those scenes to stray. 

And truant oft, I climbed aloft 
The tapering hills all day, 

Which o'er those dells like sentinels, 
Look down on Bantry Bay. 



1 8 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 




MA COLLEEN DHAS CRUTHA 

NA MO 

T^HE sun in his lustre is bathing 

The heather on summit and steep, 
And gilding the ivy unfading, 

That twines round each mouldering keep, 
As proudly our fleet ship is sailing, 

Away o'er the ocean's bright glow 
That bears me from thee and dear Erin, 

Ma Colleen dhas crutha na mo. 

Before me in splendor are towering, 

The sea-beaten cUffs of the south, 
Which, oft times of old had re-echoed 

O 'Sullivan's fierce battle shout ; 
But soon from my sight they'll be waning. 

As westward in sorrow I go. 
Afar from the hills of my sireland, 

Ma Colleen dhas crutha na mo. 



SOJVGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 19 

Oh ! fair is the scene, by the twilight, 

That stretches from Cove to Fercail, 
But bitter the thoughts of the exile 

When leaving his loved Innisfail ; 
And bitter and briny the quick tears, 

That down o'er my lone bosom flow, 
For Ireland in distance is fading, 

Ma Colleen dhas crutha na mo. 

What torrents of bliss filled by bosom, 

And love -light flashed forth from your eye. 
That eve when by Dermod's old castle, 

You called me your patriot boy ; 
And bade me go forth to do battle 

While one of the Sassenach foe 
Polluted the valleys of Erin 

Ma Colleen dhas crutha na mo. 

We fought, but how vain were our efforts 

To sever the bonds of the slave ! 
And thus we've been banished forever 

Away o'er Atlantic's blue wave ; 
But memory within me shall mirror 

Thine image wherever I go. 
And that of the land of my fathers. 

Ma Colleen dhas crutha na mo. 



SONGS. S0NNE7S AND ESSAYS 



AN OLD MAN'S SOLILOQUY 

A N old man stood on the shelving shore 
Neath the heat of a summer's day, 
With furrowed cheek and wrinkled brow 

And locks of silvery gray ; 
And he gazed with an ardent wistful gaze, 

O'er the ocean's blue expanse 
Where the amber light of the radiant sun 
On the wavelets seemed to dance. 




And thus he spoke in sorrowing mood, 

As he bent his princely head : 
" Where yon clouds dip in the sparkling sea 

Have my darling boiichals sped, 
For they hated the yoke of a foreign power, 

And its clink on our plunder'd plains 
Made the rebel blood, from their manly hearts, 

Rush red through their youthful veins. 



SOATGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS : 

Ah me ! to think on that morning fair 

When to their blighted home 
They bade adieu, and turned away, 

O'er distant dimes to roam. 
They shaped their course to the glowing West, 

Where Atlantic seeks the strand. 
And the farmer reaps as he tills and sows. 

In a bright and prosp'rous land. 

He comes not yet, though he said he'd come 

When the seasons thrice had rolled ; 
When Nature thrice, in her mantle green, 

Decked mountain and fibrous wold. 
Ah ! Fortune frowned on my bouchal baun, 

Though he courted her fickle smile. 
And he bent his steps to the setting sun 

Far away from his own Green Isle. 

And now they will lay me down to sleep 

In a grave by yonder dun 
Ere the pulse of my heart is homeward bound 

From the land of the setting sun. 
Yet some day over my grave he'll kneel 

And filial tears will start 
When these longing arms no more can fold 

That son to this aching heart." 



2 2 SOA'GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

ST. PATRICK'S DAY 

'THROUGH far from thy valleys, dear Erin, we roam 

In this freedom bless'd land by the Western Ocean, 
We love the Green Island, our Country and Home, 

With a filial, fond and undying devotion. 
Fair land of our fathers, how dearly we love thee ! 

Bright home of the gifted, the gallant and gay, 
We cherish thy shores and the blue sky above thee 

Wherever we wander on Patrick's Day. 

While Scotland and Wales, 'neath the heel of the Norman, 

In wiUing submission lay prone and supine 
Thy daughters and sons, both at home and in exile. 

Have proved their devotion at Liberty's shrine. 
When the gallant Colonials, camped about Boston, 

Drove the black-hearted red coats of Howe from the Bay 
The sons of Gael bore the brunt of the battle, 

And Washington's watchword was " Patrick's Day." 

Let the stout Caledonians fatten the fetters, 

The Cambrians forfeit their right to be free ; 
But a son of proud Erin shall never surrender, 

Nor bend to a tyrant "the suppliant knee." 
We have kept the Green Banner of freedom unfurled, 

Though ofttimes defeated ; we'll keep it for aye, 
'Till our sons, scattered far o'er the lands of the world. 

Shall hail it triumphant on Patrick's Day. 



sojvgs, sonnets and essays 23 

By the shades of the stout-hearted chieftains of Erie, 

The martyred Fitzgerald, brave Emmet and Tone, 
By the graves of our dead from Dungannon to Beara, 

And the wrecks which the red-handed Britain has strewn, 
We'll never surrender our Isle to the stranger 

Nor yield to a title of Sassenach sway, 
But fight to defend her through famine and danger 

'Till stands she erect upon Patrick's Day. 

* 4» * 

THE SONGS OF OUR LAND 

O, roam w^here you will through the civilized nations, 



G 



From grim keeps of winter to summer's bright zone. 
And still it will greet you in sweet intonations — 

" The Last Rose of Summer left blooming alone ! " 
Ye sons of the Muse that illumine our pages — 

Moore, Mahoney, Davis, and Callinan grand — 
Your names shall go down thro' the long coming ages 

Enshrined in the beautiful songs of our land. 
Dear children of Nature, sweet bards of our Island, 

Balfe, Mangan, and Lover and Griffin sublime, 
Your songs are a beacon that gleams from the highland, 

" A rainbow of hope," through the vistas of Time. 
You may roam through the universe, mix with the races 

From the Orient sky to the Occident strand, 
And still you shall hear, 'mid all people and places. 

The soul-stirring, sweet-sounding songs of our Land. 



24 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 




ROBARD 

T ENVY thee thy lot, Robard, 

In consecrated earth 
Thou sleepest 'neath the Shamrock sward 

In thine own land of birth ; 
And after years of exile spent, 

Far in the golden West, 
Thy motherland doth fold thee fond 

To her enraptured breast. 



Those song birds, dearly loved in youth. 

Make vibrant all the air ; 
The flora of thy sunny South 

Is round thee ev'rywhere, 
And the river of the valley 

We roamed, when young and free — 
The Kista — chants thy requiem ere 

It murmurs to the sea. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 25 

While in a clime where Winter grim 

A long, long vigil keeps, 
Far from his home, thy bosom friend, 

The noble Dermod sleeps, 
And I, a pilgrim, bent beneath 

A weary weight of years, 
Am left of that triumvirate 

To roam f/iis vale of tears. 

In early youth we left our home, 

Impelled by dangers grim, 
And sought the land of Massasoit 

Beyond the Ocean's rim. 
Thence, lured by lust of gold and fame. 

We traversed fields afar. 
Until we reached these coasts beneath 

The bright Hesperian star ; 

And there, amid the sunset slopes, 

Came bright and blissful days, 
Until, alas ! the fates decreed 

A parting of our ways. 
Dost know that I, returned once more, 

With tear-dimmed eyes to-day 
Intone my Miserere o'er 

Thy tenement of clay ? 



2 6 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

Rest calmly by the Kista's wave ; 

The sordid ones of earth 
Who kneel beside thy hallowed grave 

Can ill appraise thy worth : 
They little knew the wealth of love, 

The purpose pure and high 
That deep within thy bosom strove, 

In summer days gone by. 

With all the constancy of fate, 

You wrought to raise this land 
High to her former proud estate. 

Among the nations grand : 
The patriot ardor of thy soul 

On mine was fondly set ; 
The exile's cares of thirty years 

Have not effaced it yet. 

Farewell, Robard, adieu for I, 

Far from the Kista's wave, 
Must find beneath some foreign sky 

A mute unlettered grave ; 
But we shall meet, my friend of yore, 

" Philosopher and guide," 
Where kindred spirits part no more, 

Beyond the Great Divide. 



SONGS, SOiVNETS AND ESSAYS 27 



MORTY OGE 

The subjoined verses are translated from a Gaelic narrative poem, 
supposed to have been composed by Owen Roe O'Sullivan, who won con- 
siderable fame on the borders of Cork and Kerry in the middle of the 
eighteenth century. 

The revolting deed which the poem commemorates is still a fresh tradition 
among the inhabitants of that picturesque territory that lies between the 
Kenmare River, Bantry Bay and the Dursey Sound. Mortimer O'Sullivan, 
commonly called " Morty Oge," was the last chief of the O'Sullivans of 
Beare. He sei'ved with distinction in the wars of Maria Theresa of Austria. 

After the battle of Fontenoy, in 1745, he joined the Irish Brigade in the 
service of France with the hope of one day recovering his ancestral home 
and patrimony in the barony of Beara. 

While recruiting in the South of Ireland for the Brigade which had lost 
so heavily on that famous Belgian battlefield, he got into difficulties with the 
revenue officer of the British Government, who at that time occupied the 
home of the O'Sullivans, the Castle of Dunboy. 

O'Sullivan, whose reputation for skill and bravery in battle was well 
known along the wild coasts and in the glens of his native barony, com- 
manded a fast sailing brigantine in which he took back to the Coast of France 
the very flower of the Irish peasantry who, in all ages, had a love for war and 
adventure. The work of recruiting might have gone on indefinitely, without 
any action on the part of Mr. Puxley, the revenue official in those parts, were 
it not that a company of Irish soldiers, in the English service, left their bar- 
racks, in Cork, where they were awaiting transportation beyond the sea, 
hastened across the mountains to an inlet of the Kenmare River, joined the 
standard of the young Irish Chief and sailed away to France. 

The government naturally became alarmed and Puxley was severely 
censured. Needless to say that he now increased the number of his yeomen 
and kept a sharp lookout for the return of the Clan Na Dara. This was the 
name given by the Irish Chief to his brigantine, fitted out by the French 
government for the transportation of the wild geese. To prove to the 
English officials in Ireland his vigilance and activity, Mr. Puxley shot down, 
with his own hand, an aged uncle of Morty Oge. 

On the return of the Clan Na Dara, Colonel O'Sullivan was shocked by 
the news of his uncle's fate. Leaving his ship in Coulach Bay, he mounted 
his horse and crossing over a spur of the Caha hills, reached Dunboy, the 
home of the levenue officer, just in time to find him mounted for his morn- 
ing's ride. The meeting was sudden; the salutation short and fatal. At 
the first exchange of shots, Puxley fell lifeless from his horse in the presence 
of his wife. 

Retracting his journey across the mountains, O'Sullivan reached his shiji 
in safety, and with a second cargo of wild geese, was soon scudding under 
full sail to the shores of la belle France. 



28 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



The fact that Puxley had murdered his uncle did not justify the act of 
the avenger ; but there was no other means of redress in those evil days when 
the native population were shot down like beasts of prey, if they dared to 
assert their rights. The cohorts of the invader rode rough shod over the 
rights of the original owners of the land, and there was no other way of 
obtaining redress for grievances, save by an appeal of force. 



'T^HE bitter winds of hoary March were lashing sky and 

main, 
And hghtnings flashed thro' heaven's arch mid tempest, 

clouds and rain, 
As through the brightness and the gloom, amid the splashing 

spray, 
A cutter swept round Mizen Head, and into Bantry Bay. 

On deck Walter Fitzsimmon stood, a wiley Norman Thief, 
A tiger thirsting for the blood of Clan Na Dara's Chief. 
Around him are his hireling yeos, a God forsaken pack — 
Beware tonight, brave Morty Oge, those thieves are on your 
track. 



Beware young Chief before whose blows proud Austria's 

foemen reeled. 
Whose sword has turned the tide of war on many a foreign 

field; 
Whose Celtic skill and valor well upheld the Austrian Crown 
When Europe's proudest despot hand would fain have torn 

it down. 



SOA'GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 29 

'Tis midnight now ; the storm has ceased ; the rain comes 

gently down, 
And naught beside the baying dog is heard in Castletown. 
Straight to old Dermott's ancient keep the skulking yeomen 

steer ; 
Then with a oath ascend Miscush, dark, rugged, cold and bare. 

On through the stillness and the gloom those mighty demons 
stride, 

By brush and broom, through glen and coom, o'er plain and 
mountain side ; 

Nor halt they for the boistrous brook, nor check their head- 
long pace 

But forward press to seize their prey, like beagles in the chase. 

And now falls on their guilty ears the booming of the brine, 
As dimly through the night appears Cille Catherine's holy 

shrine. 
Where all around in hut and hall the guileless peasants sleep : 
Without the dogs from stack and sty a wary vigil keep. 

Hark to their shrill alarm now ! The inmates up and out 
As round the cottage, front and rear the savage yeomen shout. 
Within stood brave O'Sullivan, by Scully's"* greed betrayed ; 
His powder wet, without defence, save his good Austrian blade. 



* Scully. A tradition states that Scully, his trusty man, betrayed 
O'Sullivan by wetting his powder. 



30 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

Beneath the eaves those cowardly yeos thrust flaming brands 

of fire ; 
Then roof and thatch, in lurid light, blazed like an Indian 

pyre. 
With sword in hand against the band of brigands forth he 

prest 
And two stout yeos in mortal throes before him bit the dust. 

A one-eyed yeoman hidden in a nearby live oak tree, 
With his unerring rifle set the Chieftain's spirit free ; 
And thus fell gallant Morty Oge with trusty sword in 

hand : — 
He died as did his noble sires, for Faith and Fatherland. 

With fiendish jest and ribaldry the yeos retrace their course 
Bearing along the murdered chief athwart a boney horse. 
Dunbuie is reached ; thence through the tide to Cork's fair 

town they trail 
His mangled corpse, and spike his head above the North 

Cork jail. 

Aye, mock us aliens, as you will, but by that Chieftain's 

hand 
Yourselves and all your hireling crew we'll chase from off 

the land, 
And flaunt our olden battle flags o'er bay and mountain blue 
With that old war-inspiring shout, " Lav Feeston hous abu." 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 31 

When Celtic bands from foreign lands again shall homeward 

come, 
And legions bound, and hills resound to voice of harp and 

drum ; 
When pales with fear each Norman peer and quails each 

Saxon rogue, 
'Tis then a vengeance stern we'll have for the death of 

Morty Oge. 




LAW AND LIBERTY 



/^ LAW, thou shield of liberty, 
God's light is on thy brow ; 
O Liberty, thou life of law, 

God's very self art thou ; 
Twin daughters of the bleeding past, 

The hope the prophets saw ; 
God give us law in liberty, 

And liberty in law. 



32 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



FAREWELL, FAREWELL, MY 
NATIVE HOME 

"r'AREWELL, farewell, my native home, 

By Cleena's darkly swelling foam ; 
The tyrants say that I must roam 

Across the stormy water. 
I love my country as my Lord, 
For which they mete the dark award 
Of exile from my native sward 

The gibbet, cell or slaughter. 

O, Deremihan ! farewell to you. 
Betwixt the bay and mountains blue, 
And to thy breezy height of view 

Where first I saw the morning. 
Of all the world I love thee most, 
Wild hamlet of the fairy coast ; 
Nor can Columbia's realms boast 

Of scenes more fair and charming. 

No more, my loyal comrades brave, 
We meet beside the glowing wave. 
And vow our hallow'd land to save, 
Or fall with deathless glory ; 



SOA'GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



?>?> 



We seek no more the thrilling chase, 
The ride, the jump, the swim, the race — 
But naught, save death, can e'er efface 
Their fondly cherished story. 

Exult you children who can stay 
Among those scenes so wild and gay 
Of olden fanes and castles gray ; 

Pride of the Christian era : 
Where balmy breezes murmur through 
The waving corn of golden hue : 
Poor, homeless Celt, they're not for you 

Adieu, my sunny Beara. 




34 SONGS, S0NNE7S AND ESSAYS 




RETURNING TO ERIN 

TOY, joy! Our ship is cleaving now 
Old Cleena's sparkling water, 
Where Carew sailed, in the reign of Bess, 

With the dark intent of slaughter. 
Lo ! in the light of the amber dawn 

A hundred shining fountains 
Come glimmering through the morning mist 
From Beara's tapering mountains. 

The Dursey Head heaves full in view, 

Fercael leaps out to meet us, 
And old Ccan Salas battered points 

Spring up as if to greet us. 
O glorious sight, O radiant dawn, 

O morn of joy and gladness ! 
This wanderer's heart is well repaid 

For many a day of sadness. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 35 



'Tis many a year since I beheld 

That scene, which seemed elysian — 
The shoreline of my native land 

Slow sinking from my vision. 
But isn't it blissful now to see 

That shore-line growing nearer — 
And feel the breath of my native heath, 

By absence long made dearer ! 

Hail lovely Erin, Motherland, 

While wandering lone and weary 
I've yearned for thee, arooti machree, 

Beyond the Western Prairie. 
Hail dauntless Erin, Motherland 

Of Grattan, Burke, O'Connell, 
Of great Red Hugh and Owen Roe 

And ardeJit Aegh O'Donnell. 

A million martyrs died for thee 

And proved their deep devotion. 
On battle plain and scaffold tree. 

Dear Emerald of the ocean ; 
And millions, in the land I've left, 

Who love thee, still are yearning 
To aid thy fearless sons at home, 

Who keep the "beacons burning." 



36 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

Home of my youth, of love and truth, 

Of all my youth's relations. 
Albeit thou art called, in sooth. 

The Niobe of nations ; 
Thy exiled children love thee still 

The more for thy defiance 
To rack rent rule, and tryant hate 

And Britain's base aUiance. 

Though famine-fever's ghastly hand 

Thou'st felt in hut and hovel. 
Thou wouldst not yield, ill fated land, 

Nor to the tyrant grovel. 
Stand firm for Faith and Freedom still 

O trampled Isle of Beauty ! 
Resistance to a despot's will 

Is man's most sacred duty. 



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SOA^GS, SOA'A'ETS AND ESSAYS 37 



HURRAH FOR THE SWORD 
AND RIFLE! 

"THE VOICE AND PEN'' 

What burst the chain far over the main 

And brightened the captive's den ? 
'Twas the fearless pen and the voice of power — 
Hurrah for the Voice and Pen! 

Hurrah ! 
Hurrah for the Voice and Pen ! 

— Denis Florence MacCarthy. 

\ IT" HEN the foe accurst on our Island first 

His ruthless legions flung, 
Their arms were then the swords of men, 

Not the Orator's flaming tongue. 
Wouldst thou rejoice o'er the nation's weal 

And her Senate house restore, 
To her foes appeal through the flash of steel 

And the "'murderous cannon's roar." 
Hurrah for the sword, the gleaming sword ! 

With which no tyrants trifle, 
And the men who fight in the cause of right, 

With sabre and flashing rifle ! 



38 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

How canst thou say, in the light of day, 

That the Voice and the Pen have broken 
The chains accurst, where of Freedom first 

Hath Patrick Henry spoken ? 
His words were feeble, fruitless, vain, 

Were there no swords to aid them. 
No fearless men from town and glen, 

No Washington to lead them. 
Hurrah for the sword, the gleaming sword ! 

With which no tyrants trifle, 
And the men who fight, in the cause of right, 

With sabre and flashing rifle ! 

Of such tame stuff we've had enough, 

O genial bard of Erin ! 
For our Birthright we'll have to fight 

In battle strong and daring ; 
To break that yoke we must evoke 

The battle's Voice and thunder 
Which cultured " men of voice and pen " 

Have failed to burst asunder. 
Hurrah for the sword, the gleaming sword ! 

With which no tyrants trifle, 
And the men who fight, in the cause of right. 

With sabre and flashing rifle ! 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 39 

When the foe accurst on our Island first 

His ruthless legions flung, 
Their arms were then the swords of men. 

Not the Orator's flaming tongue. 
Wouldst thou rejoice o'er the nation's weal 

And her Senate house restore, 
To her foes appeal through the flash of steel 

And the " murderous cannon's roar." 
Hurrah for the sword, the gleaming sword ! 

With which no tyrants trifle, 
And the men who fight for sacred right. 

With sabre and flashing rifle ! 




40 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 




THE EXILE'S RETURN 

T OW sank the sun beneath the Caha hills, 

Leaving a mellow light on land and sea, 
As a lone stranger from a foreign shore 

Paused 'mid the storied wreck of grand Dunbuie. 
In such a place must poet-patriot feel 

Emotions welling to his trembling lips, 
Treading alone the sacred mound where sleep 

Ingus, the bard, and " Donal of the ships/*' 

Swift sped the sun o'er half the convex earth. 

And morning flashed along the Eastern waves. 
As the lone stranger from a distant shore 

In Cille Fijiaiie knelt o'er two new made graves 
Chanting a de Profiindis for the souls 

Whose mortal tenements are silent there, 
Awaiting 'till Gabriel's trumpet blast 

Peals from the clouds and rolls from sphere to sphere. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 41 

Where fast by Castle Dermod's ruined keep 

Nestles his native town secure from storm, 
And the blue bay mirrors the darkling hills 

That cluster round in grand theatric form, 
He stood by the " Patriot's trysting rock" 

And thus soliloquized : "In this lone wood 
Full oft we met, ye brave and gallant few. 

Who've nobly kept the faith in nationhood." 

These are the haunts that erst I dearly loved 

While yet a blithe and listless youth. 'Twas here 
I learned to lisp my hallowed country's name, 

And con the history of her sad career. 
Then was I charmed by Bauba's bardic lays 

Or what my breast could still more warmly fire, 
The sweet symphonies of these latter days. 

Young Ireland's muse, or Moore's enchanting lyre. 

What sad vicissitudes hath time, since then, 

Among the dwellers of this hamlet wrought ; 
My aged friends have passed unto the tomb ; 

My schoolmates, homes in distant climes have sought, 
And here, alone, at twilight's mellow hour. 

Sad and unknown, in pensive mood I stand 
Gazing around on old ancestral halls — 

A homeless stranger in my native land. 



42 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

Homeless, 'tis true, yet not a stranger here ; 

The sparkling fountains seem to murmur, ' Hail,' 
And out from each grove the speckled throstles sing 

Ceade Millie failfhe back to Innisfail ; 
And fond Erinna smiles to see me come. 

My first and only love who still appears, 
Through care and grief and feudal lordlings hate, 

A widowed beauty smiling thro' her tears. 

God of our Fathers, have we cried in vain 

To thee our Lord for succor and for hope — 
Nerv^e Erin's arm as thou didst Judith's hand, 

To dye with tyrant's blood Bethulia's slope. 
Look down and see with what Satanic pride 

Britannia fain thy glory would eclipse ; 
For she's the harlot on the Scarlet beast 

Foretold by John in the Apocalypse. 

Creative Power, when Nature'' s morning dawned, 

And from Atlantic's swell green Erin rose. 
Was it ordained in Thy divine decree 

That she should be the future Isle of woes ? 
When shall that Niobe, bereft of woe. 

Wreathe her old harp and chant a joyful song ? 
Yet must her children mournful exiles stray 

On foreign shores ; How long, O Lord, how long ? 



SONGS, SOAWETS AND ESSAYS 



43 




AN EXILE'S PRAYER 



T^HOUGH I have won an honored name, 

True friends and wealth galore ; 
A free-born people's proud acclaim 

On this bright alien shore, 
I feel the sadness of my lot — 

An exile far away — 
And pine for thee, my native spot, 

Upon St. Patrick's Day. 

Oh for an hour, this hallowed morn, 

'Mid Erin's pleasant vales, 
I'd give this fruitful western land 

Its gold and tropic gales ; 
My life I'd gladly give to see 

In war-like vast array, 
Thy patriot sons 'neath Emerald folds 

Upon St. Patrick's Day. 



44 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

I love the Union's starry flag 

Have sealed it with my blood, 
When, on the slopes of Malvern Hill, 

Our Irish legions stood ; 
But when the hurtling bullets flew, 

Where surged the deadly fray, 
I pray'd to strike, my land, for you 

On some St. Patrick's Day. 

Great " God of Armies," thou dost see 

How hapless Erin stands ! 
Her friends divided and as weak 

As uncemented sands ! 
Send her a leader to unite 

Her sons, and crush for aye, 
All foreign pow'r within her shores, 

Upon St. Patrick's Day. 

Grant, also, this request to me. 

That when I come to die. 
My spirit may ascend to Thee 

Through Munster's glorious sky ; 
And that these bones be laid to rest, 

With their ancestral clay. 
In that Green Isle, by freedom blest, 

Upon St. Patrick's Day. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 45 



CHRISTMAS MEMORIES 

"T'AR across the shimmering ocean 

Lies a lonely little dell, 
Nestling 'mid the hills of Beara, 

Where a hundred fountains well ; 
Sylvan slope and leaping torrent, 

Verdant glade and cliff and stream 
Make that lonely mountain hamlet 

Lovely as a painter's dream. 

There, above the darkling river, 

And beneath the hillock brown, 
Stands the dear old white walled school-house 

By a busy, ancient town ; 
And beyond the olden school-house 

Stands a solitary cot 
Which in all my world-wanderings, 

I have never once forgot. 



46 



SOA^GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



I have still some cherished memories 

Of the festive Christmas mirth 
When the yule logs glowed and crackled 

In the ample cottage hearth ; 
Of the charms that made its precincts 

Like another Eden bloom — 
But the smiles that were its sunshine 

Now are gathered to the tomb. 

And this weary, weary wanderer 

From that home that erst was bright 
With weal and wine and welcome, 

On each blessed Christmas night, 
To that hamlet may return now, 

Where he roamed a listless boy, 
But a mother's love and welcome 

He may never more enjoy. 




SOA'GS, SOAWETS AND ESSAYS 



47 




THE GREEN ISLE OF THE 
CELT 

T AM dreaming, nightly dreaming 

Of a land almost divine, 
Where a hundred torrents streaming, 

In the radiant sunlight shine ; 
'Tis a land where saints and sages 

In ages flown have dwelt; 
'Tis writ in history's pages, 

The Green Isle of the Celt. 

I am thinking, thinking ever 

Of the scenes 'mong which I strayed, 
Of the green lawn, by the river, 

Where in boyhood oft I played, 
Of the songs that into tenderness 

The listener's heart would melt. 
And the heroes brave who died to save 

The Green Isle of the Celt. 



48 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

There the zephyrs softly breathing, 

Waft a fragrance o'er the plains, 
And the fadeless ivy's wreathing 

Round the ancient, mouldering fanes ; 
There first my infant bosom 

These patriot feelings felt, 
'Mid thy fair hills and valleys. 

Green Island of the Celt. 

I am pining, pining bitter 

For that land so heavenly fair, 
And the myriad charms that glitter 

In celestial beauty there. 
My bosom's tide shall wet thee, 

And bones to ashes melt. 
Ere this lone heart forget thee, 

Dear Green Isle of the Celt. 




SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 49 




THE MOUNTAIN STREAMS 

T^HE mountains streams of Ireland, 

How grandly rolling down, 
They dash and foam through glen and coom, 

By castle, mole and town. 
They cheer the exile in his woe, 

Who sees them in his dreams — 
The streams he loved long, long ago — 

The rushing mountain streams. 

They waft a fragrant odor down, 

Through many a sylvan vale, 
And, murmuring to the breezes, tell 

The story of the Gael ; 
They saw the plundering Norman hordes 

And heard their lawless schemes 
To bow the changeless Irish race — 

The bright, eternal streams. 



50 



SO JVC S, S0NNE7S AND ESSAYS 



Methinks thy ancient bards, oh land ! 

First learned their tuneful song, 
Where those exhaustless, rushing springs 

In dazzling beauty throng ; 
For yet their charming voices thrill, 

With olden bardic themes, 
That haunt the exile's mem'ry still — 

Exhaustless mountain streams ! 

Oh, rushing rills, oh, magic streams, 

Your absence long I've mourned ; 
For you and all your pastoral scenes 

This cheerless heart has yearned ; 
Yet, yet I hope some morn to roam 

Where dance the mild sunbeams 
Along the glorious swelling waves 

Of Ireland's bounding streams. 




SOJVGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 51 



JOSEPH CLEBURNE'S GRAVE 



On a wild hillside not far from Virginia City, Nevada, Dr. Joseph Cle- 
burne lies buried. A rude paling which marked the final resting place of 
this gifted Irish physician has been torn up by one of those tornadoes that 
frequently sweep down from the tall summits of the Sierra Nevadas. 

Doctor Cleburne was the brother of General Patrick Cleburne of Con- 
federate fame. The family belonged to C'ounty Cork, Ireland, and gave 
many distinguished men to the arts of peace and the havoc of war. 



F^ AR from the verdant slopes of cove, 

'Neath Occidental skies, 
Where the rude Indians camp and rove 

Poor Joseph Cleburne lies. 
Neglected and forgot the mound 

Where rests his sacred clay 
As if the race from which he sprang 

Were dead and passed away. 

Coyotes dun o'er Erin's son 

May howl through the long night ; 
The owl and bat that dread the day 

Wing their nocturnal flight, 
But prayer nor sigh ascends on high 

Nor flowerets fragrance shed, 
Nor friendly hands strew green garlands 

O'er Joseph Cleburne's bed. 



52 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 




THE TOCSIN OF WAR 

T O ! how the war-cloud is sullenly lowering, 
And threatens to burst over Europe afar ; 
Clan Erin assemble ! and grand be your pouring 
When Russia resounds the dread Tocsin of War. 

Soon shall the Russian Bear 

Drag from his ruddy lair 
The tyrants still red with the blood of our sires. 

Wake the old battle cry, 

Onward to do or die ! 
Every proud Celt who to freedom aspires. 

A bright gleam of hope Mother Erin caresses ; 

The Goddess of Freedom smiles down on her plains ; 
As the eagle sores up from his mountain recesses 

Sunward she'll burst thro' the sassenach chains. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 53 

Sons of the sturdy North, 

Peal the Rosg Caha forth ! 
Ye mountains re-echo the spirit afar ! 

Sons of the gallant South, 

Fling the old banner out. 
When Russia resounds the dread Tocsin of War ! 

Ye bards of our island, wake from your slumber 

To fan the dull embers of battle once more ; 
Strike Erin's dairsach 'till every wild number 
Be heard by her sons on each far-distant shore. 

Spirit of Shears and Tone, 

Hark to the Britons' groan ! 
The highway to freedom no tyrant can bar. 

Join every Celtic clan, 

Erin's avenging van, 
When Russia rings out the dread Tocsin of War ! 




ESSAYS 

T^HESE essays are included because of their kin- 
ship to the poems, and especially by reason of 
the close friendship which existed between the author 
and the men of whom the essays treat. 

The essay relating to Father Tabb received wide 
publication on account of the many interesting facts 
relating to his life which have not appeared in any 
biographical sketch hitherto published. 

The author of " Maryland, My Maryland," was 
also a very dear friend of Rev. D. O. Crowley for 
many years, and because of his intimate knowledge 
of Mr. Randall's literary ambitions he was qualified 
to write appreciatively of his character and genius. 



55 



SO.VGS, SONA'ETS AND ESSAYS 57 



THE POET-PRIEST 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF REV. JOHN B. TABB 



T^HE popular and dearly beloved poet-priest, who 
died in St. Charles' College, Howard County, 
Maryland, on the 19th of November, 1909, had an 
eventful career. In the second year of the struggle 
which ended at Appomattox Courthouse, John Ban- 
ister Tabb, at the age of eighteen years, graduated 
from the university of his native State. The Tabb 
family was one of long and high standing in Virginia. 
John B. Tabb's father was the owner of a large 
plantation and of many slaves. The children of 
that household were loyal Southerners, every one, 
and on the day of his graduation John tendered his 
services to the Confederacy. 

Being young and too delicate for active service 
in the field, he was assigned to duty in the Com- 
missary Department. Later he was appointed secre- 
tary to Colonel Stone, who was sent by Jefferson 
Davis on a mission to England. The steamer which 



58 SOA'GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

carried Colonel Stone and his gifted secretary out 
of New Orleans also gave passage to the Rev. Father 
Bannon who, having served as chaplain in the South- 
ern Army, was commissioned to visit Pius IX, then 
head of the States of the Church, with a view of 
obtaining the Holy Father's recognition of the Con- 
federacy. Father Bannon was a splendid specimen 
of young manhood, tall, handsome and straight as 
an arrow. A man of high intellectual attainments, 
it was pleasant to meet and instructive to converse 
with him. 

Having run the blockade out of New Orleans, the 
steamer was far on the high seas when young Tabb, 
walking on the bridge with the captain one day, 
asked about the distinguished looking man who 
paced the deck beneath them. " That's a Catholic 
priest," replied the captain, " and he's going to Rome 
on a mission similar to yours." 

Mr. Tabb had read of priests in nursery books, 
but he had never to his knowledge set eyes on a real 
priest before that day. There were no Catholics 
that he knew in Amelia County, where he was raised, 
and he had never seen a Catholic priest during his 
course at the University of Virginia. His mother, 
an Episcopalian, one of the best of women, had 
read and believed strange and awful things about 
"Romish priests," which were related to the young 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 59 

Tabbs as nursery tales. Father Bannon was, there- 
fore, a subject of curiosity to our future poet-priest. 
Descending to the promenade deck, young Tabb 
eyed the clergyman engaged in reading the divine 
office, "not," as he often afterwards said, ''without 
feelings of awe." 

With a simplicity characteristic of genius, Mr. 
Tabb accosted the clergyman with the question : 
" Are you a Catholic priest ? " Father Bannon 
replied in the affirmative. " Was your father a 
priest?" " No, my boy," answered Father Bannon 
with a smile. 

Encouraged by the winning smiles of the amiable 
padre, Mr. Tabb launched another question, saying, 
" Will your son be a priest ? " Father Bannon, see- 
ing the young man was speaking in good faith, 
kindly replied, " I think not ! " 

Having satisfied himself that Rev. Father Ban- 
nons' breviary contained no imprecations against 
the Protestants, the young Southerner was disposed 
to think kindly of the priest. 

Before they landed at Glasgow, Tabb was an 
ardent admirer of the virtues and the learning of his 
fellow passenger. 

John Banister Tabb was at that early day one of 
the best Latin and Greek scholars of the South. In 
classical learning he excelled, and could appreciate 



6o SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

the erudition and attainments of his new found 
friend. 

During a voyage across the Atlantic of fourteen 
days, Father Bannon had the time and ability to dis- 
abuse Mr. Tabb's mind of the false impressions 
which it had received about Catholics and Catho- 
licity. It is reasonable to believe that the foundation 
of his conversion was then laid by the good and 
zealous priest who had been doing missionary work 
south of the Mason and Dixon line in ante-bellum 
days. 

About the middle of November, 1863, Tabb came 
back to his native coasts on the steamer Robert E. 
Lee, which was pursued and captured by the United 
States ship Keystone State. Among other prisoners 
our poet was sent to a northern dungeon at Old 
Lookout, Maryland. Here he formed the acquaint- 
ance of that brilliant young poet, Sidney Lanier, 
who died all too soon for his country and the litera- 
ture of the *' Lost Cause." The prison acquaint- 
ance ripened into friendship which never knew 
a waning. He dedicated a volume of poems to the 
memory of Lanier, and tenderly cherished that 
memory to his very last day. The spiritual relations 
with this friend of youth seem never to have been 
severed, according to the following beautiful lines: 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 6i 

SIDNEY LANIER. 

Ere time's horizon-line was set, 
Somewhere in space our spirits met, 
Then o'er the starry parapet 
Came wandering here. 

And now that thou art gone again 
Beyond the verge, I haste amain 
Lost echo of a loftier strain 
To greet thee there. 

Released from prison, he taught music for awhile 
in St. Paul's Episcopal School, at Baltimore. Later 
he occupied the Chair of Rhetoric in Racine Col- 
lege, Michigan. For a time he held a position on 
the staff of Harper's Weekly. 

After much wandering, his weary spirit found a 
resting place and a home in the bosom of Mother 
Church, and he settled down to his life's work in 
that ecclesiastical college, founded by and called 
after Charles Carroll, of Carrollton. There in the 
shadow of the woods that surrounded the manor 
house of the Carrolls, he spent the happiest days of 
his life and framed his sweetest songs. 

In 1 88 1 he entered St. Mary's Seminary, Balti- 
more, to study for the priesthood. He had already 
achieved fame as a poet, a wit, and a writer of the 
best English prose. We looked upon him with awe, 
and thought it a privilege to " touch the hem of his 
garment." 



62 ^ONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

We soon discovered, however, that this scion of 
the Southern aristocracy was as humble and demo- 
cratic as ourselves, the very soul of wit and soci- 
ability. 

His room in the Seminary was across the corridor 
from mine, and I, therefore, saw much of him. Both 
of us having had considerable experience in the 
outer world, we easily became friends. 

Much of our evening recreation was spent to- 
gether in the beautiful little park that skirted the 
Seminary on Paca Street, and I still remember the 
peals of hearty laughter evoked by his brilliant 
flashes of wit and mirth-provoking humorous re- 
marks. As a punster he had no peer ; but the 
arrows that flew in all directions left neither sting 
nor wound behind. He was always kindly con- 
siderate of others' feelings, and, unlike most wits, 
cordially enjoyed a joke on himself. 

It was his wont, when the poetic inspiration 
moved him, to retire from his company or w^ork, 
go to his room and remain there until the finished 
poem appeared on paper. He often came to my 
door after an absence of two or more days, with the 
product of his genius fresh from the busy workshop 
of his brain. Once committed to writing, he seldom 
used the " labor of the file" upon his verses. They 
were sent post haste to some one of the big maga- 



SOA'GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 63 

zines, and a good cheque came back within a week 
or two as an acknowledgment. 

One beautiful evening in May he came to my 
room with the manuscript of the following sonnet on 

SHELLEY IN NATURE. 

Shelley, the ceaseless music of thy soul 

Breathes in the cloud and in the skylark's song, 
That float as an embodied dream along 
The dewy lids of morning. In the dole 
That haunts the west wind, in the joyous roll 
Of Arethusan fountains, or among 
The wastes where Ozymandias, the strong. 
Lies in colossal ruin, thy control 
Speaks in the wedded rhyme. Thy spirit gave 
A fragrance to all nature, and a tone 

To inexpressive silence. Each apart — 
Earth, air and ocean — claims thee as its own, 
The twain that bred thee, and the panting wave 
That clasped thee, like an overflowing heart. 

The magazines of that day compared this with 
Wordsworth's great sonnet, which contains the oft- 
quoted verse on the Immaculate Conception — " Our 
Tainted Nature's Solitary Boast." 

Mr. Tabb could wax warm and eloquent at all 
times over the poetry of Shelley. 

When the poet-priest of the South, Rev. Abram 
Ryan, was getting out an edition of his poems in 
Baltimore, about 1882, the students of the Seminary 
saw him frequently, and were very much interested 



64 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

in him and his literary work. He was not entirely 
free from the eccentricities of genius, and rumor 
had it that he did not stand well with his bishop. 
While this was noised abroad we had reached that 
chapter in Church history which treats of the Arian 
heresy. One evening coming out of class Mr. Tabb 
gravely put his hand on a student's shoulder, and 
said with a sad face, " I have bad news for you." 
The student listened to hear him say, "The poet- 
priest of the South is declared a heretic." We anxi- 
ously inquired the grounds for such a proceeding. 
He cooly answered, " Because he is an A-ryan — 
an Arian." 

On another occasion, finding some difficulty in 
studying dogmatic theology, he expressed a wish, 
in case he should die at the Seminary, to have the 
inscription on his headstone read : 

"Here Lies John B. Tabb, D. D." 

" What is the D. D. for ? " exclaimed the students. 
" Died of dogma," he answered, without a smile. 
He compiled a skeleton grammar for his English 
classes, in St. Charles' College, which he entitled, 
" Bone Rule." 

When the little volume was published he sent me 
a copy, on the fly-sheet of which was written, by his 
own hand : 



SOA'GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



65 



THE AUTHOR'S EPITAPH. 

*' Here lies the old fool 
Who taught us at school 
To use the 'Bone Rule;' — 
Oh, Lord, keep him cool^ 



With all this seeming levity, fun and froUc, Mr. 
Tabb was a serious, sensible and reHgious gentle- 
man. There was no malice in his composition. 




Rev. John B. Tabb, D. D. 



66 SONGS. SOAWETS AND ESSAYS 

He took very sane and conservative views of matters 
in general. He was an extremist only in two things 
— his devotion to the " Lost Cause," and love for 
the memory of Edgar Allan Poe. 

He made periodical visits to the grave of Poe, 
and, on free days, I occasionally accompanied him to 
the old Westminster Churchyard, in Baltimore, where 
the author of " The Raven " is buried. Poe, Keats 
and Lanier, among the poets, were his favorites ; 
made all the dearer to him by their sorrows and 
sufferings while in the "Vale of Tears." 

In December, 1884, John B. Tabb was ordained 
a priest in the Cathedral at Baltimore. He was 
afhliated to the diocese of Richmond, but with the 
permission of his bishop, he went back to St. 
Charles' College, in order to devote most of his time 
to teaching and literature. 

There Father Tabb worked faithfully and well 
for a quarter of a century, and enriched by his 
untiring genius the poetic literature of the English 
language. 

In every sentence written by Father Tabb there 
is a thought, and every thought is poetic. The 
power of condensation belongs to him above most 
men who have written in our language. Here is a 
sample from the beautiful verses entitled : 



SOA'GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 67 



EVOLUTION. 

" Out of the dusk a shadow, 

Then a spark ; 
Out of the cloud a silence, 

Then a lark ! 
Out of the heart a rapture, 

Then a pain ; 
Out of the dead, cold ashes, 

Life again." 

His poetry on the whole is not for the hurrying 
crowd. It appeals more to the thoughtful, the criti- 
cal and the learned. Yet some of his verses have a 
charming simplicity. Such are the sweet, euphoni- 
ous couplets of 

THE EROOK. 

'• It is the mountain to the sea 
That makes a messenger of me : 
And. lest I loiter on the way 
And lose what I am sent to say. 
He sets his reverie to song 
And bids me sing it all day long. 
Farewell ! for here the stream is slow, 
And I have many a mile to go." 

How vividly the autumn of life is pictured in the 
following verses : 

" Behold the fleeting swallow. 

Forsakes the frosty air; 
And leaves, alert to follow, 

Are falling everywhere 
Like wounded birds, too weak, 

A distant clime to seek. 



68 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



And soon with silent pinions 

The fledgUngs of the North 
From Winter's wild dominions 

Shall drift, affrighted, forth, 
And, phantom-like, anon, 

Pursue the phantoms gone." 

That those who place all their trust in t/iis life 
are phantoms pursuing phantoms, Father Tabb dis- 
covered in his early youth, and turned away from 
the transitory glories of fame and fortune to find 
Faith, Hope and Consolation in the bosom of the 
Catholic Church. He never looked back. He 
shunned renown, but fame persistently followed him. 
While yet in the full possession of health and vigor, 
he was acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic a 
great poet and a brilliant wit. 

An Anthology of his poems was edited by Alice 
Meynell, and published in London several years ago. 
The English critics of that time placed him in the 
front rank of living poets, and his works are in high 
demand wherever English is spoken. 

What Fontaine wrote of Chateaubriand cannot 

be applied to him : 

"His fate had been, with anxious mind 
To chase the phantom Fame — to find 
His grasp eluded ; calm, resigned, 
He knows his fate — he dies. 

Then comes Renown, then Fame appears, 
Glory proclaims the coffin hers ; 
Aye, greenest over sepulchres 
Palm-tree and laurel rise." 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 69 

This was not the fate of Father Tabb. What 
most Hterary men strive for came to him unsought. 

Father Tabb's felicity in writing quatrains is well 
illustrated in his lines on the death of 

FATHER DAMIEN. 

O God, the cleanest offering 

Of tainted earth below, 
Unblushing to Thy feet we bring — 

" A leper white as snow ! " 

The disappointments, the failures and sorrows of 
Father's Tabb's youth had their compensation in 
the peace, contentment and happiness of after years. 
He celebrated his daily Mass, mingled with pupils 
and dreamed his dreams in the seclusion of his 
study. For more than a quarter of a century he 
lived in the congenial company of Nature and his 
books ; he published several volumes of poems 
which sold well ; he was highly esteemed by thou- 
sands who never saw him, and loved by all who felt 
the influence of his affectionate nature. Surrounded 
by those who were dearest to him on earth, he died 
full of faith and good works, and hundreds who 
passed under his tutorship to the priesthood will 
offer prayers and sacrifices for his eternal rest. 



SOA^GS, SOAWETS AND ESSAYS 71 



JAMES RYDER RANDALL 



POET LAUREATE OF THE CONFEDERACY, PATRIOT 
AND JOURNALIST 



jy /I R. Matthew Page Andrews, of Baltimore, is 
getting out a complete edition of Randall's 
poems. The advance sheets of the work are before 
me. The book is being gotten out under the 
auspices of the James Ryder Randall Memorial 
Association, organized to " honor the name and 
cherish the fame of the Maryland poet." 

The association is doing a creditable work, and 
all lovers of good literature should show their 
appreciation in a practical way. A portrait of the 
gifted Southern poet, painted at the expense of his 
native State, by Miss Catherine Walton, has recently 
been unveiled in the State House at Annapolis. 
Augusta, Georgia, is preparing to erect a monument 
to Mr. Randall in that city, where he spent so many 
years as a hard-working newspaper editor and 
correspondent. 

Seven different communities claimed the distinc- 
tion and honor of having Homer born among them. 



72 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

That, however, was after Homer's death ; for in his 
dedining years the bUnd old Bard of the Ihad was 
obHged to beg his bread from door to door. 

Homer was not the only poet who could not 
commercialize his genius and accumulate wealth. 

Born in the South and educated there before the 
advent of the " Carpet-Bagger," James Ryder Ran- 
dall was not trained to turn his talents into coin, 
and, therefore, he remained poor during his long, 
laborious life. Had he been born and educated in 
Massachusetts instead of in Maryland, had he 
kenned the New England knack of judiciously 
tipping the press agents, he might have widened 
the circle of his fame, hobnobbed with the swells of 
clubdom while living, and left behind him worldly 
possessions to equal those of Henry W. Longfellow, 
Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Boyle O'Reilly. 
In his day the dollar was not deified south of the 
Mason and Dixon line. He was out of joint with 
contemporary writers of the Northern States, and 
having manifested no exalted opinion of his own 
talents, the world rated him according to his own 
standard until he had ceased to sing. 

Neglected like Goldsmith, Mangan and Edgar 
Allan Poe while living, the Southern States are now 
vieing with one another to honor and perpetuate 
his memory. 



SO.VGS, SONjVETS AND ESSAYS 73 

Born in Baltimore, on the first day of January, 
1839, Randall was descended from Acadian French 
and Irish ancestry. His first teacher was Mr. J. H. 
Clarke, who in his youth had been the preceptor of 
Edgar Allan Poe. After leaving the Clarke school 
he entered Georgetown College, where the Jesuits, 
those masters of belks lett?'es, soon discovered and 
developed his love and talent for literature. 

Georgetown soon recognized him as the college 
poet. Like most young classical students, the 
heroes of Greek and Roman history were the 
subjects of his early muse. " Leonidas at Ther- 
mopylae" and the " Mother of the Gracchi" were 
his first poetic compositions to attract public notice 
and determine the bent of his great talents. 

His constant companions at College were Byron, 
Mangan, Keats and Poe. Temperamentally he 
resembled Poe. Fortunately Randall had none of 
those vices which blasted the career of that brilliant 
but erratic child of song. James Clarence Mangan, 
one of the most truly gifted and genuine poets of 
the prolific age in which he lived, was a prime 
favorite of Randall's during all the days of a long 
lifetime. 

In 1905 Mr. Randall made a visit to the Pacific 
Coast and became my guest. We spent a part of 
the time at Rutherford, Napa County, where we 



74 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

talked a good deal about poetry in general, and the 
war songs of the South in particular. While en- 
gaged in one of those pleasant conversations, I 
remarked that the patriotic ardor, religious fervor 
and the glow of poetic feeling which characterized 
his poetry reminded me of Clarence Mangan. 

" Mangan," he replied, " influenced my youth 
very much indeed, and his book of poems, given to 
me in the beginning of my career by Mr. D. C. 
Jenkins, the editor of the New Orleans Delia, has 
been the vade meciim of my maturer years. ' The 
Karamanian Exile ' of that great, though neglected 
Irish poet, solved the metre of ' Maryland, My 
Maryland.' " 

"While teaching," he continued, "in Poydras 
College, near Pointe-Coupee, Louisiana, I read and 
absorbed a good deal of Mangan's poetry. To- 
wards the end of April, 1861, I went to the neigh- 
boring town to get the latest news from the North. 
The Civil War was brewing and I was anxious for 
news. Purchasing a paper, the first thing that 
appeared to me was an account of a bloody en- 
counter between the citizens of Baltimore and the 
Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, on its way to intimi- 
date the people of the South. The clash occurred 
on the 19th day of April, and the first man to fall 
in defence of what he believed to be the rio-ht was 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 75 

a brave young fellow who had been an intimate 
friend of mine in Georgetown College. About dusk 
I returned to my room in a very agitated state of 
feeling. Love of my native State began to assert 
itself. I felt that an indignity had been cast upon 
her. I wished I had been able to stand beside 
my college mate, with him to defend the honor of 
Maryland. 

'' That night I tried in vain to sleep. In troubled 
dreams my schoolmate seemed to beckon me to 
his aid where the melee grew fierce and sanguine. 
Sorrowful and excited I got out of bed and lit my 
candle. The euphonious measures of the ' Kara- 
manian Exile ' came welling up in my memory, and 
' Maryland, My Maryland,' wrote itself that night." 

Next morning the professor of literature read the 
finished copy of the poem to his class. The 
students were fired by the spirit and patriotic fervor 
of the verses, and urged him to have it published 
forthwith. Complying with the wishes of the pupils 
and faculty of Poydras College, the author sent his 
manuscript to T/ie Delta of New Orleans. It was 
published in that paper on April 26th, and within a 
week in every paper of all the Southern States. Mr. 
Randall, at the age of twenty-two years, achieved 
fame and, by virtue of a single war song, became 
the favorite poet of the South. 



76 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND 1 

The despot's heel is on thy shore, 

Maryland ! 
His torch is at thy temple door, 

Maryland ! 
Avenge the patriotic gore 
That flecked the streets of Baltimore, 
And be the battle queen of yore, 

Maryland! My Maryland! 

Hark to an exiled son's appeal, 

Maryland ! 
My mother State! to thee I kneel, 

Maryland ! 
For life and death, for woe and weal, 
Thy peerless chivalry reveal, 
And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel, 

Maryland ! My Maryland I 

Thou wilt not cower in the dust, 

Maryland ! 
Thy beaming sword shall never rust, 

Maryland! 
Remember Carroll's sacred trust, 
Remember Howard's warlike thrust — 
And all thy slumberers with the just, 

Maryland ! My Maryland ! 

Come! 'tis the red dawn of the day, 

Maryland ! 
Come with thy panoplied array, 

Maryland ! 
With Ringgold's spirit for the fray. 
With Watson's blood at Monterey, 
With fearless Lowe and dashing May, 

Maryland ! My Maryland ! 



SOiVGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 77 



Come ! for thy shield is bright and strong, 

Maryland ! 
Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong^ 

Maryland I 
Come to thine own heroic throng, 
That stalks with Liberty along. 
And gives a new key to thy song, 

Maryland ! My Maryland ! 



Dear Mother ! burst the tyrant's chain, 

Maryland I 
Virginia should not call in vain, 

Maryland ! 
She meets her sisters on the plain — 
^' Sic se?nper!^^ 'tis the proud refrain 
That baffles minions back again, 

Maryland I My Maryland ! 



I see the blush upon thy cheek, 

Maryland ! 
For thou wast ever bravely meek, 

Maryland! 
But lo! there surges forth a shriek 
From hill to hill, from creek to creek- 
Potomac calls to Chesapeake, 

Maryland 1 My Maryland I 



Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll, 

Maryland ! 
Thou wilt not crook to his control, 

Maryland ! 
Better the fire upon thee roll, 
Better the blade, the shot, the bowl 
Than crucifixion of the soul, 

Maryland ! My Maryland ! 



78 SOJVGS, SONJVETS AND ESSAYS 



I hear the distant thunder-hum, 

Maryland ! 
The Old Line's bugle, fife and drum, 

Maryland ! 
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb — 
Huzza ! she spurns the Northern scum I 
She breathes! she burns! she'll come! she'll come! 

Maryland ! My Maryland ! 

It had not gone the rounds of the press more 
than ten days when Miss Jennie Gary, a famous 
belle of Baltimore, and a talented musician, set it 
to music. The evening on which the music sheets 
came from the publisher, there was a meeting of 
a local glee club to which Miss Gary belonged. 
Sitting at the piano, she sang out with fine voice — 

"The despot's heel is on thy shore, 

Maryland ! " 

The house went wild with enthusiasm, and 
everybody joined in the refrain ; immense crowds 
gathered in the vicinity of the club rooms, and the 
new secession song has ever since that night held 
its popularity in the chief city of Maryland. 

On the evening of the 4th of July following the 
first appearance of the poem. Miss Gary, her 
brother and several friends, as the guests of General 
Beauregard, near Fairfax Gourt House, Virginia, 
were serenaded by the renowned Washington 



so AGS, SOXjVETS AND ESSAYS 



79 



Artillery of New Orleans, in recognition of their 
services to the South. Captain Sterrett, expressing 
their thanks for the compliment, asked if there was 
anything the ladies could do in return. The 





James Ryder Randall. 



soldiers cried out, " Let us hear a woman's voice." 
Miss Jennie Gary, standing at the door of a tent, 
under cover of the darkness, sang " Maryland, My 
Maryland ! " The refrain was caught up by the 
Rebel lines and flung back from ten thousand Rebel 



So SOJVGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

throats. As the last strains died away in the sultry 
night air, the soldiers gave three cheers and a tiger 
for Maryland. 

Thus was " Maryland, My Maryland ! " inaugu- 
rated as the battle song of the Confederacy, on the 
bloody field, a few days after the memorable battle 
of Manassas. Never has song been written in such 
soft euphonious measures that could arouse so 
much fierce enthusiasm in the breasts of fighting 
men ; and I know of no instance in the history of 
war where a battle song has been thus introduced 
and adopted on the field of action. 

" Maryland, My Maryland ! " stands alone in this 
respect and in its undying popularity. 

This brief and incomplete sketch of the gentlest 
and kindliest of men would be wanting, indeed, 
without some reference to his prose waitings. 

The greater part of his life had been given to 
filling the maw of some newspaper. He edited 
T/ie Morning Star in New Orleans ; for a long 
time acted in a similar capacity for The Chronkk 
in Augusta, Georgia, and wrote regularly for several 
Catholic weeklies. While acting as private secre- 
tary to more than one United States Senator, he 
also filled the role of Washington correspondent for 
the Augusta Chronicle. Writing to this journal, in 
the early eighties, of the battle royal, in the Senate, 



SOA'GS, SOJVNETS AND ESSAYS 8i 

between Conkling of New York and Lamar of Mis- 
sissippi, he wound up a very brilliant, epigramatic 
and able article with these words : 

" I need not repeat the scene : the charge of bad 
faith ; its indignant repulse ; the lying brand ; the 
bucket-shop retort through all the gamut of the 
subjective mood — these things I need not reproduce. 
But it must be recorded that when Lamar, with 
absolute calm and awful deliberation, said : ' I 
have only to state to the Senator from New York 
that he understood me correctly. I said precisely 
the words that he understood me to say. My 
language was harsh and unparliamentar}-, and I 
beg the pardon of the Senate for it ; but my lan- 
guage was such as no good man would deserve and 
no brave man would bear.' Mr. Conkling lay like 
a Goliath in the dust, with a great gash upon his 
brazen front, while over him the Mississippian 
stood in very majesty." 

This is a specimen of his prose, taken at random ; 
it combines the descriptive elegance of Washington 
Irving with the vigorous brevity of Emerson. When 
Father Ryan, " the poet-priest of the South," 
died, Randall, in the Augusta Cliro?iicIe^ paid a 
beautiful tribute to his character and poetry, which 



82 SONGS, SONNE 7S AND ESSAYS 

was copied not only in nearly all the papers of the 
United States, but in many foreign journals also. 
The same issue of the Chronicle printed " Resur- 
gam/' To these two articles Theodore C. Cone, 
of Washington, D.C., refers in the following strain : 

" Yesterday a copy of your paper fell into my 
hands. It contained two notable things which I 
take to be from the same hand. One a poem, 
* Resurgam ; ' the other what may well be called a 
prose-poem on the death of Father Ryan. Either 
one or the other is sufficient to entitle the author to 
lasting fame. It seems a great pity, indeed, that 
a man who has the remarkable gifts which are 
evidenced in these splendid productions should be 
doomed to the dray-horse work of journalism. 
There certainly is no higher gift than that which 
enables a man to move the deepest cords within us 
by the exaltation of his thought and the high har- 
mony in which it is given expression. Such a man 
merits a large mead of praise and public approval." 

Though Mr. Randall was always ready with his 
facile pen to contribute to the public approval of 
other writers, he never sought it for himself. 

Through the press of the South he first called 
the attention of all lovers of American literature to 



SOJVGS, SOA'iVETS AND ESSAYS ^2) 

the neglected grave of Edgar Allan Poe. While 
visiting his aged mother in Baltimore, he made a 
visit to the final resting place of that author, in 
Westminster churchyard. He then wrote an elo- 
quent letter to the Augusta Chronicle, appealing to 
the public to erect a monument to the author of the 
*' Raven." The appeal was sent to Mr. George W. 
Childs of Philadelphia. Through him the funds 
were raised and the memorial erected. 

Though his attitude to his own work was one of 
indifference, Randall was appreciated far and near. 
In his "Fifty Years Among Authors, Books and 
Publishers," Derby relates an incident that occurred 
in London, not long after "Maryland" had first 
appeared. " My friend," writes Mr. Derby, " the 
Hon. J. R. Thompson, on a visit to England, was 
invited to the house of a very distinguished family 
in London. There he was introduced to a brilliant 
young lady who, sitting at the piano, played and 
sang for him in a charming voice, ' Maryland, My 
Maryland ! ' 

" When she had finished, amid great applause, she 
stepped up to him and said, ' When you return to 
America and see the poet who wrote that song, tell 
him that you heard it sung by a Russian girl who 
lives at Archangel, north of Siberia, and learned to 
sing it there.' " 



84 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

This reminds us of what an English officer, 
serving in India, wrote to Thomas Moore after the 
publication of " Lalla Rookh " : 

"They tell me, Moore, your songs are sung — 
Can it be true, you lucky man ? 
By moonlight, in the Persian tongue, 
Along the streets of Ispahan." 

Those who were on the opposite side of the 
"armed controversy" of 1861 thought highly of 
Randall's literary talents. Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
expressing his regret for not being able to attend 
the unveiling of a bust of Sidney Lanier at John 
Hopkins University, said in his letter to Gilman, 
then the president of that great school, " I was 
anxious to go down because Baltimore had pro- 
duced the three best things of their kind in our 
poetic literature : ' The Star Spangled Banner,' ' The 
Raven ' and ' Maryland, My Maryland ! ' " 

Dr. Holmes, writing to Mr. Chas. Strahan as 
late as 1886, said: " I always regretted that I could 
not write for what I believed to be the right side 
of the Civil War a song as genuine, life-like, musical 
and effective as ' Maryland, My Maryland ! ' " 

In 1907 Governor Edwin Warfield, of Maryland, 
proposed to call home and give official recognition 
to the bard who had immortalized his State in 
song. The entire State enthusiastically endorsed 



SOiVGS, SOAWJSTS AND ESSAYS 85 

the proposition, and a poet who loved Randall and 
Maryland, catching the spirit that was then evoked, 
wrote the following verses in honor of both : 

• Maryland, My Maryland," I heard the bugles play, 

And oh the golden music turned my heart the golden way; 

I saw the old State gleaming in her beauty as of yore, 

Beside her rippling rivers, and beside her dreamy shore ; 

The sweet old song woke echoes of her beauty in my breast — 

The song of Randall's Maryland — may the wreath upon him rest! 

The song of Randall's Maryland, how it rings upon the air 
When from the sweet old valleys of the dear old State we fare; 
Amid the alien cities, or on hills and seas afar 
It woos the heart's affection and it wakes you where you are 
To the old home's tender beauty, and the spirit breathes a cheer 
For the poet in whose music rings the old home love so clear. 

Oh Randall, God be with you, for we owe you much who know 

The glory of your Maryland, feel the rapture of its glow; 

The world should give you comfort and the land reward your worth 

With all the goodly blessings of the golden dream of earth — 

For all the world is beauty when the bugles and the band 

Ring out the stately measures of the song you gave the land. 

I heard the bugles play it, and I heard the voices sing 
The words of Randall's Maryland and my heart began to ring, 
And my soul was filled with longing for the valleys that I knew. 
The tender skies above them w^ith their balmy breath of blue; 
I heard the rivers calling, saw the green fields by the shore. 
And felt the old emotions that I felt in days of yore. 

• Maryland, My Maryland," I heard the echoes ring, 

I saw the dear old hills of home grow green with breath of spring; 

I saw the orchards ripen in October's golden sun, 

I saw the shores of Edenland unto the blue bay run ; 

My heart re-echoed, " Maryland," and my soul responded, too, 

O Randall of the golden song God's grace be unto you. 



86 SOA'GS, SONA'ETS AND ESSAYS 



RESURGAM. 

Teach me, my God, to bear my cross, 

As thine was borne ; 
Teach me to make of every loss 

A Crown of Thorn. 
Give me thy patience and thy strength 

With every breath, 
Until my lingering days at length 

Shall welcome death. 

Dear Jesus, I belisve that thou 

Didst rise again ; 
Instil the spirit in me now 

That conquers pain. 
Give me the grace to cast aside 

All vain desire, 
All the fierce throbbing of a pride 

That flames like fire. 

Give me the calm that Dante wrought 

From sensual din ; 
The peace that errant Wolsey sought 

From stalwart sin. 
I seek repose upon Thy breast 

With child like prayer ; 
Oh, let me find the heavenly rest 

And mercy there ! 

If I have, in rebellious ways. 

Profaned my life ; 
If I have filled my daring days 

With worldly strife ; 
If I have shunned the narrow path 

In crime to fall — 
Lead me from the abode of wrath 

And pardon all I 



so AGS, S0iVNE7S AND ESSAYS 87 

Banished fiom Thee, "where shall I find 

For my poor soul 
A safe retreat from storms that blind. 

Or seas that roll ? 
Come to me, Christ, ere I, forlorn, 

Sink ' neath the wave. 
And on this blessed Easter Morn 

A Lost one save. 

This poem was written in Washington, D. C, 
while Mr. Randall was acting as private secretary 
to Senator Joseph E. Brown. The most prominent 
men of that time thought it one of his best efforts 
in poetry. It was copied in all the papers of the 
land, committed to memory by thousands of ad- 
mirers, and preserved in innumerable scrap books. 
Many critics compared it to Cardinal Newman's 
beautiful hymn : 

"Lead kindly light, amid the circling gloom: 
Lead thou me on." 

The poet himself, whose attitude towards his 
own poetry was not highly appreciative, thought 
well of this. He evidently did not relish being 
introduced everywhere as the author of " Maryland, 
My Maryland ! " He was not a single song writer. 
The fame of his war song, however, became so 
great as to cast into obscurity all his other brilliant 
works. 



S8 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

On the occasion of his visit with the Knights of 
Columbus to San Francisco, I had the pleasure 
of introducing him to an audience of very select 
and prominent people as " Mr. Randall, the author 
of 'Maryland, My Maryland!' the ' Marsellaise ' 
of the South." In a brief preface to his remarks 
he wondered why he should always be announced 
as the writer of a single song. Yet such was his 
fate, notwithstanding that he had written many 
things of greater literary merit than " Maryland, 
My Maryland ! " Among other pieces he men- 
tioned the following, which, perhaps, on account of 
his deeply religious nature was first, last and all the 
time a favorite with the bard of the Confederacy : 

WHY THE ROBIN'S BREAST IS RED. 

The Saviour, bowed beneath his cross, 

Clomb up the dreary hill, 
While from the agonizing wreath 

Ran many a crimson rill. 
The brawny Roman thrust him on 

With unrelenting hand — 
'Till staggering slowly 'mid the crowd, 

He fell upon the sand. 

A little bird that warbled near 

That memorable day 
Flitted about and strove to wrench 

One single thorn away ; 
The cruel spike impaled his breast, 

And thus ' tis sweetly said, 
The Robin wears his silver vest 

Incarnadined with red. 



SOJVGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 59 

Ah Jesu! Jesu ! Son of Man! 

My dolour and my sighs 
Reveal the lesson taught by this 

Winged Ishmael of the skies. 
I, in the palace of delight, 

Or caverns of despair. 
Have plucked no thorns from Thy dear brow, 

But planted thousands there. 

I believe it was Emerson that said, " Where the 
poet is, though his abode be the wilderness, there 
the heart of the race beats." The heart of humanity 
throbs through these pathetic lines ; goes out in 
sympathy with — 

' The little bird that warbled near 
That memorable day," 

and the " heart of the race " loves Randall the 
dreamer, — even in this materialistic age, because 
he is able to reveal a something divine that is in 
every human being. 

The poet of the Confederacy was a practical and 
devout child of the Church. His faith also was 
childlike, sublime and beautiful. The non-Catholic 
writer of his life and works says: "Always religi- 
ously inclined, he grew to be one of the most devout 
members of the Catholic Church in America. 
Whatever the storm or stress of time, he neglected 
no form of religious observance which he deemed 
to be a part of his duty towards his Maker. In his 



90 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



last letter to Miss Shepherd, of Maryland, he ex- 
hibits his patience and trust in Divine Providence. 
Having given expression to his great longing for 
his native State, he concluded thus : 

" ' I have so long submitted to what I felt was 
God's will that whenever I am not supernaturally 
helped to go where I wish, I patiently wait for the 
deliverance and always find it for the best. Where- 
fore, using every human effort to get back to 
Baltimore, what can I do but await the summons 
from on high and the necessary pecuniary help ! ' " 

" The necessary pecuniary help " has reference 
to a plan which the State Legislature had under 
consideration of engaging Mr. Randall to collect 
and catalogue the historical documents in the arch- 
ives at Annapolis. 

This plan was about to materialize when " God's 
will " called the poet to his eternal home. When 
"the summons from on high" came, a little over 
two years ago, it found him ready and resigned. 

Fortified with the last ministrations of the Church 
which he had served so faithfully during a long, 
eventful and distinguished career, he died as he had 
lived with the love of our blessed Savior in his 
heart and " Resurgam" on his lips. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 91 

Like many another lyrist he sleeps far away from 
the place of his birth, immortalized by his genius ; 
but Augusta, Georgia, where he lived and labored 
for forty years, will raise a monument to commemo- 
rate his worth, and carve upon its polished surface 
a stanza from his own majestic muse, expressive of 
our common fate and fondest hope : 

AFTER A LITTLE WHILE. 

The Cross will glisten and willows wave 

Above my grave. 

And Planets smile ; 
Sweet Lord! then pillowed on Thy gentle breast. 

I fain would rest, 

After a little while. 



SONGS AND SONNETS 

BY 

REV. T. L. CROWLEY, O. P. 

Aquinas College, Columbus, Ohio 



SONGS, SONA'ETS AND ESSAYS 95 



BEYOND 

T PICKED a tinted sea-shell from the shore 

One day, and while I held its orifice 
Unto my ear, I heard the zephyrs kiss 
The deep, — the rustling sails of ships which bore 
Across the crested main their laden store, — 
The quick and whirring wings of birds whose bliss 
Sweet-cadenced sped along above the hiss 
Of angry surf that on the sea-rocks tore. 

A softer music from the pearl-gemmed shell 
Of faith enchants my heart. Across God's hill 
A golden symphony awakes of song 
And angel minstrelsy. Sweet anthems swell 
And voice and heart and lute my soul so thrill, 
That winged wdth love it seeks the blessed throng. 




g6 SONGS, SOIVNETS AND ESSAYS 



THE FLOWERS OF PRESENT 
LOVE 

T^HE fleeting moments of our life 

Eternities contain 
For constant ministrations rife 
With love or needless pain. 

The honied words of genial cheer 

Sepulchered hearts revive, 
And minds o'ercast with laden fear 

Resurgent move and strive. 

Our alabaster box of love 

Too oft is sealed with care 
Whose healing ointment poured above 

Sad hearts would soon repair. 

The jewel of each friendly thought 

Uncasketed should shine, 
And show that spirits kindly fraught 

Partake of the divine. 

The ever present is the time 

For anguish to allay, 
And raise from depths, to heights sublime, 

The souls who cannot pray. 



SOiVGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



97 



Post-mortem kindness never brings 
Sweet smiles upon the dead; 

Our madrigal all hollow rings 
When chosen ones are fled. 



The flowers you'd place upon the biers 

Cull now with eager hand, 
And bathed with nature's sunny tears, 

Unite with love's sweet band. 

Bring then the hast'ning joys of earth 

To every troubled heart, 
And by your Midan touch of mirth 

New strength and hope impart. 




98 



SONGS, SOANETS AND ESSAYS 



AWAKENED JOY 

T WATCHED the dandelion unfold 

Its beauteous shield of shining gold, 
And saw the tiny creature's bliss 
When on it fell the sunbeam's kiss. 

I heard the goldfinch far away, 
Singing his joyous roundelay 
To field and stream and tree and flower, 
Even beyond the vesper hour. 

I wondered then, why I was cold, 
Why fetters strong my heart did hold ; 
I could not, like this flower, gold-spun, 
Drink in the glory of the sun ; 

Nor from my soul with shadows drear 
Sing like the finch, a song of cheer, 
Yet bird and flower awoke my lyre 
And set my chilling heart afire. 




SOA'GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



99 





<i.i''» 


1 


i'^H^H 


• 

1 "li 






PPiv ^^ 



MAGDALEN 

I\ /I UCH had the tearful Magdalen 

Erred in her early life ; 
Much thrilled her chastened soul again 
With love and virtue rife. 

She met the Savior's tender look, 

She heard his words of love ; 
Her risen spirit upward took 
Its way to heights above. 



Deep was her sorrow for the past, 

Torrential were her tears ; 
The Savior's gentle love at last 

Brought peace and calmed her fears. 



SONGS, SONNE 7S AND ESSAYS 

To show her love she thought it meet 

As tenderest regard, 
To lave with tears the Savior's feet 

And sign with spikenard. 

Dear paragon of penitence, 

Our lives with snares are strewn ; 

Help us preserve our innocence. 
And God shall be our boon. 

Should taint of moral leprosy 

Envassalage our soul ; 
Cease not Thy gentle clemency 

That Christ may be our goal. 



**••*• *i* 



FRIEND OF OUR EXILE 



r^ ENTLE lyre of consolation, 
Solace in my desolation, 

Friend in hours of exultation, 
My Rosary. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS lOi 




THE AZURE OF REMEMBRANCE 

r^EATH closed the scene, and took from me a friend 

I tenderly had loved. Beside his bier 
I gazed upon his face where never fear 
Had been, but constant love unto the end. 
And while I thought deep, poignant grief would rend 
My weeping, aching heart for him so dear, 
There coursed down my cheek a love -fraught tear, — 
The only messenger my heart could send. 

Upon the grave it fell, and, as at sea, 
The diver passes from our sight to tread 
The treasured deep, straightway unto the spot 
It sped, where lay his heart ; I bent my knee 
A little space from where I wept and read 
His answer in a blue forget-me-not. 



;o2 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 




RABBONI 

O AD were thy hours on Calvary 

With Christ in His drear agony. 
Thy bitter tears with love replete 
Embalmed the Savior's wounded feet. 



Thou sawst them take Him from the Cross 
How utter was thy cruel loss ! 
Thou sawst Him placed within the tomb, 
Thy soul was freighted then with gloom. 



SONGS, SOiViVETS AND ESSAYS 103 

Disconsolate you trod the way , 
Your sad heart sang its plaintive lay; 
The sunny smile, the kingly face 
Of Christ was humbled with disgrace. 

How^ thrilled thy soul, how changed thy fears ! 
When sweetest music charmed thy ears ; 
The music of the Savior's voice 
Which made your wounded heart rejoice. 

" Rabboni " was your gladsome word ; 
" Rabboni," yes, your sweet King heard. 
Ecstatic joy thrilled through thy heart, 
No more thy Savior would depart. 

Oh, Magdalen ! with joy elate, 
Teach us thy love to imitate ; 
At Easter may our lips accord 
Rabboni greeting to the Lord. 

4» 4» 4» 

NATURE'S LESSON 

'T^HE autumn fields with hectic flush 

Prognosticate decay ; 
Consummate strength of man will blush 
Before death's awful sway. 



I04 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 




MY OFFERING 

'T^HE shepherds woke when on their stilly height 

There streamed a flood of soft and argent sheen. 
Straight to a cave it led them, where a paean 
From angel voices broke the hush of night. 
Within the rock before their startled sight 
An infant lay. Beside Him knelt the Queen, 
Supremely fair, who with her spouse was seen 
Bent o'er the child in ravishing delight. 

Thy love, O Christ, a purer light than shone 
Upon the silver-mirrored hills, now leads 
Me to Thy crib. Here held entranced above 
Thy infant form, no gold nor precious stone 
I bring to thee ; the earnest of kind deeds 
I. offer Thee, O gentle Babe, is love. 



SOXGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 105 




THE TRIPLE LEGACY 

/^UR sire, a triple legacy 
^^^ Bequeathed to every friar, 
To praise, to bless with clemency, 
To preach with holy fire. 

LAUDARE 

Before the eucharistic throne 
With joy we keep Christ's court. 

And with a sweetly rhythmic tone 
His tender words report. 

The psalms and hymns in unison 
Are carolled in the choir. 

Each dulcet note a benison 

Comes from our heart's own lyre. 



io6 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



BENEDICERE 

From out the lavish plenitude 

Of Christ's abiding love, 
Annointed hands an amplitude 

Of grace brings from above. 

The sick, the maimed, the shriven soul, 

Sweet benedictions share ; 
And newer visions of their goal 

Bespeaks a Father's care. 

PRAEDICARE 

The words of holy utterance 

Which Christ spoke on the mount. 

We preach as our inheritance 
And sacredly recount. 

Our fire-touched lips exultingly 

Preach Jesus crucified ; 
And grace leads men triumphantly 

Where ransomed souls abide. 



O triple office, sacredly 

"To praise, to bless, to preach," 
May sainted Domnick blessedly 

His children daily teach. 



SOiVGS, SOXNETS AND ESSAYS 



107 




THE CRATER OF CALUMNY 

T^HE burning crater of Vesuvius 

Poured forth its red and baleful curse of fire. 
The molten stream with seething, hellish ire, 
Unleashed, leaped from its lurid uterus 
And torrent-like swept with fell impetus 
Engulfing verdant fields and trees and spire. 
Fair cities wept and drank the lava dire 
And slept enswathed in cerements sulphurous. 

The flaming crater of ill speaking Hps 
More searing vomit than volcanoes pour. 
The lying words first question lilied names 
And then the leprous-tainted tongue soon trips 
To acrid calumny. True men abhor 
The viper soul which wilfully defames. 



io8 SONGS, SONArETS AND ESSAYS 




THE TENDER LOVE OF CHRIST 

nPHE widow's son of Nairn was borne 

Along the tlioroughfare ; 
The weeping mother's heart was torn 
With grief and grim despair. 

Her only hope and strength and joy 
Was stretched upon the bier ; 

The pallid form of her dead boy 
Had palsied her with fear. 

No more the smishine of his face 

Would dissipate her fears ; 
No more his virile youth would grace 

The sunset of her years. 



SOA^GS, SOAWETS AND ESSAYS 109 

While yet abysmal sorrow filled 

Her broken heart with pain ; 
Her soul with sudden hope was thrilled 

When ceased the moving train. 

Her saddened eyes beheld the mien 

Of Jesus by her side ; 
His presence cheered the mournful scene 

And hopefulness revived. 

He looked beyond the present span, 

And saw till his last breath, 
The cruel infamy of man 

In putting Him to death. 

He saw His form from off the Cross 

By tender hands conveyed ; 
He saw the agonizing loss 

His mother's eyes portrayed. 



Moved at the widow's sorry plight 
" Weep not," the Savior said; 

And by the influx of his might 
Gave back to her the dead. 



no SOA^GS, SOArNE7^S AND ESSAYS 

His tender love for motherhood 
Brought forth His sacred power ; 

His clement heart well understood 
His mother's dreadful hour. 

Infuse, dear Christ, Thy tenderness, — 

Thy filial regard ; 
May we our mother's happiness, 

Augment and daily guard. 

4» 4. «{» 

THE HOLY NAME 

\ 1 7HAT magic in a name ! At one fond word 

The warm blood courses through the veins. Ajar 
The heart-gates stand and memory a bar 
Of sweetest music floods the soul. Unheard — 
The triumphs which its potent spell had gird 
Full many to achieve and those whose star 
Of hope had paled in toilsome fields afar 
Caught but the whispered sound and stood inured. 

To Christian souls the hallowed name of Christ 
Is dulcet melody. It lingers long 
Upon the golden chords of hearts aflame 
With love, and wins for those whose stoutly tryst 
With hell, quick victory. May lips prolong, 
Dear King, the praises of Thy Holy Name. 



SOA'GS, SOjVNETS AND ESSAYS 



MY MOTHER'S EYES 

RIGHT eyes, tender eyes, eyes of deepest blue, 

Eyes that leap and dance with mirth and pierce 
me through and through ; 
Eyes like flaming sunsets, eyes like pearly dawns, 
Eyes of simple loveliness outrivalling the fawn's. 

1 have seen the sun towards twilight with crimson 

flush the west, 
I have seen the silvery splendor of the moon ; 
I have seen earth's rarest beauties at the dawn, the 

eve and noon, 
But the beauty of my mother's eyes is best. 

Bright eyes, tender eyes, eyes of deepest blue, 
Eyes where-in my spirit rests, eyes my life renew. 




SONGS, SONA'ETS AND ESSAYS 




AN AUTUMNAL MUSING 

nPHE autumn fields are limned with gold 

And ruby-stained are trees ; 
The Sun-God pours a molten mould 
Upon the emerald seas. 

Melodic birds with limpid song 

Enthrall to ecstacy ; 
And hastening streams their course along 

Sweep by with majesty. 



The cerule canopy above 

With pinioned clouds bedight, 

Mirages God's unceasing love 
For vale and lake and height. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 113 

Coronal season of the year 

How jocund is the field ; 
Thy ripening sandalled feet to hear 

And rend its golden yield. 

The fruited trees obey thy wand, 

Thou king of alchemy ; 
The crimson flood from vintage bond 

Springs up in luxury ! 

With magic touch thy brush is spread 

On cot, on fern, on leaf ; 
Thy gorgeous tints of gold and red 

Adorn the coral reef. 

Sweet harbinger of peace and rest, 

Thy glory stencilled o'er, 
Brings benediction to the quest 

Of nature's golden store. 




114 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



LIFE'S CANOPY 

T^HE rarest joys upon the busy marts 

Of life, are friends. Our gladdened souls may swoon 
Upon the heights of fame or seek their boon 
In Croesian wealth, but fulsome praise departs 
Like mists upon the sea and gold imparts 
But sordid care. When trusted souls commune 
Sweet cadenced happiness their liv-es attune 
And golden is their symphony of hearts. 

Though sacred are those ties that join dear friends 

On earth, more sacred yet the bonds that bind 

Our souls to Christ. Tear-stained may be our strife 

And myrrhed our hearts, but myrrh and tears Christ blends 

In rainbow tints above. Thrice blest mankind 

Whose Savior's love encanopies its life. 




SOA'GS, SOAWETS AMD ESSAYS 115 




PREPARE YOUR HEARTS 

POOT-SORE the holy couple trod 
Amid the city's motley crowd ; 
And from each door the keepers proud 
Refused a shelter to their God. 

Along the rugged thoroughfare 

Their pensive foot-falls pressed the ground, 

Until within a cave they found 

Sweet respite from the midnight air. 

Upon the rock-ribbed floor they placed 
Scant straw ; and lo ! while yet forlorn, 
In prayer, and mild-eyed beasts adorn 
The stalls, around the cave was traced 



Il6 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

Effulgent light, and angel song 
Announced the new-born King and Lord. 
Obeisance then in sweet accord 
Came from the raptured, bending throng. 

Dear Mary and her gentle spouse 
Rebuffed, departed from the Inns ; 
And Jesus, by our goading sins. 
Our sluggish hearts fails to arouse. 

Without He stands and pleading, asks 
A place whereon to rest His head ; 
And, churlish ingrates, we, instead 
Of love, reprove His tender task. 

This Yule-tide hear, oh Christian friends, 

And heed the Savior's urging call ; 

Adorn your hearts, the palace hall 

Where Christ should dwell, and make amends. 




SONGS, S0AWE7S AND ESSAYS ny 




T 



A NOBLER CONQUEST 

IBERIAS smote with battle-axe and sword 
The wild untutored hordes that swept along 



Towards Rome. Their limbs then bound in shackles 

strong, 
The soldiers homeward walked before their Lord. 
Around the garlaned arch with one accord 
The war-flushed chief is welcomed by the throng. 
With shout and blast they joyfully prolong 
Their greeting for his victory abroad. 

The Albi hordes across the sunny plains 

Of Languedoc came like a tidal wave. 

They broke upon the rock of Dominic, 

Who, cross aloft, bound fast with golden chains 

Of love their captive souls. To Christ he gave 

These precious spoils, rare trophies and majestic. 



ii8 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 




THE DEATHLESS GIFT 

\1 /HAT grace the shifting scenes of life, Uke friends, 

What solace from their ministry attend ; 
The arid days to oases are turned, 
And sullen skies with molten gold are burned. 

The trophies of our quest are stalwart souls 
Whose high resolves are guerdoned by their goals ; 
Exultant while the joys of wealth caress. 
Unflinching succor us when cares oppress. 

The plectrum of their image, memory's chords 
Awakes, and dulcet symphony affords ; 
The subtle grace of myriad featured forms 
Within our templed sanctuaries swarms. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS n 

Along the halcyon vista of our thought 
The lilied sex are nimbus-visaged wrought ; 
The sylph-like young are limned with comely airs, 
The matronly are hallowed by their cares. 

The puissant youth in adolescence state 
Reveals the soul with hopes inebriate ; 
The virile manhood of maturer years 
With laureled wisdom on our ken appears. 

A Croesian wealth we seek not in our strife, 
Content the commerce of a lowly life ; 
We only ask the melody of days 
Enriched by music of a spirit's lays. 

Thy gifts, oh God, with lavish hands are strewn, 
But friendship is Thy choicest gift and boon ; 
Our fitful hours are beaconed by the light, 
Effulgenced by a kindred spirit's sight. 

For Thee alone they toil in ecstacy 
And win for us Thy hearts own legacy ; 
Transfigured by Thy alchemy of love. 
They keep our faint and errant hearts above. 

Bless then the days to friendship's converse given. 
The nectared sweetness is a taste of Heaven ; 
And when our friends shall pass beyond the years, 
We'll bless them through the prism of our tears. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 




A BRIGHTER FLAME 



TN Roman fane, in lily-white attire, 

The virgins, vowed to Vesta in the skies, 
Sent up the incense of a people's sighs. 
And kept for them the sacriiicial fire. 
So did the Persians to their shrines retire, 
And there before the golden flame that flies 
Forever upward, — raised adoring eyes. 
And fed the blaze their rites forbade expire. 

But vestal fire and pagan Persian flame 

That leaped from altars to the gods above 

Seem faded to the golden flames that dart 

From out the cleft of Christ's own side, whence came 

The crimson streams of life. O King of love, 

How pale all fires before thy Sacred Heart. 



SOA'GS, SOiVA'ETS AND ESSAYS 



121 




EASTER DAWN 

T^HE first faint light of dawn revealed 

The Savior's sepulchre unsealed ; 
A vivid crash, the earthquake's shock, 
A fissure traced upon the rock. 



The mists of grief, the pall of gloom 
That hung around the Savior's tomb ; 
A hurried flight took with the dawn 
Of man's immortal Easter morn. 



122 SOA^GS, SOiVNETS AND ESSAYS 

Resplendent in His raiment bright, 
The Savior came arrayed with might ; 
Whom would this brightness not appall 
When soldiers fled affrighted all ? 

He met the women bathed with tears, 
His gladsome face dispelled their fears ; 
To doubting ones he ne'er denied 
To show His body glorified. 

The Resurrection has sufficed 

To prove Thy Deity, oh Christ ; 

No more the chains of death shall bind 

The ransomed spirits of mankind. 




SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



123 



^^^ 




A SWEETER HARP 

\kj HEN David's hand swept o'er the harp there sprang 

A pleasing harmony. Each note, a prayer, 
Broke in sweet rapture on the vesper air 
While from the scrolls of memory he sang 
His Maker's mercies. Eorgot were clang 
Of war, forgot the spoils that in the glare 
Of sunlight shone. All other joys were bare ; 
Each passing, fleeting, futile thought a pang. 

But I, upon a sweeter harp, awake 

A heav'nlier flood of melody. The beads 

I touch of Mary's dulcet legacy, 

In ecstacies of golden sound, break 

Upon the air. My soul the Savior's deeds 

Most sweetly sings upon the Rosary. 



124 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



THE ONE SWEET DAY 

/^NE day in each recurring year, 

Ere autumn's glow has fled, 
Our shrouded sanctuaries drear, 
Commemorate the dead. 

The plaintive requiems are sung, 

And prayerfulness instil ; 
The saddened hearts of old and young 

With recollections fill. 

Enbosomed in the clement earth, 

Encouched upon the clay, 
Our dear ones wait a newer birth — 

They rest till Judgment day. 

The genial sunshine of their thought 

Illumed the road we trod ; 
Their saintly converse often brought 

Us to the feet of God. 

Along the vista of our minds. 
Each cherished one appears ; 

And memory devoutly finds 
New graces for our tears. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



25 



How sweet, All-Soul's-Day, to repair 

Before our hidden King. 
And for the dead, by fervent prayer, 



A gentle solace bring. 



How tenderly in every church 

Is offered Sacrifice, 
That dear ones, long since gone from earth, 

May enter Paradise. 

We shall not fear the shrouded bier, 

If faithful sons we be, 
For Christ's sweet Spouse, each current year. 

Shall bless our memory. 




126 



SOjVGS, SONA^El'S AXD ESSAYS 




THE WISDOM OF THE CROSS 

( A tribute to St. Thomas Aquinas ) 
T^HE modern sage, in knowledge's sacred quest, 

Pores o'er the stained and time-worn honored scripts, 
And lo ! the potent wand of love uplifts 
The umbrous clouds on wisdom's snow-capped crest. 
Enthralled, and by her pearly rays caressed. 
His panting heart and slakeless spirit drifts 
In prescient luxury ; and shattered crypts 
Of human mysteries bring dulcet rest. 

Thy ken, O Thomas, reached the dazzling heights 

Of human lore in infant years, and wings 

Gold-tipped with love, sought higher spheres. The dross 

Of transient things soon paled, and airy flights 

Brought chastened scenes. Unslaked at earthly springs, 

You quaffed the nectared wisdom of the Cross. 



SONGS, SOAWETS AND ESSAYS 127 




THE SEASONS 

"pOND nature in her cyclic course 

Kaledoscopic shows 

A pageantry of grace and force 

While time its gift bestows. 

In Spring the fields are strewn with flowers 

Of many colored hue ; 
And dormant earth's resurgent powers 

Thrill in her veins anew. 

The Summer months' luxuriance 

Is limned on hill and tree ; 
The sun's sweet golden radiance 

Is poured upon the lea. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

The mellow days of Autumn show 
The ripened fruit and corn ; 

The crimson tints with softened glow 
The stately trees adorn. 

Across the barren, storm-swept fields 
The flakly snow is blown ; 

The icy king of Winter wields 
The sceptre on the throne. 

As nature's changing seasons span 

The periodic year, 
Thus epochs in the life of man 

As sequently appear. 

The tender bud of youth's fair Spring 
To Summer's growth unfolds ; 

Then Autumn years decay soon bring 
Our corpse the Winter holds. 



SOJVGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 129 




THE CHRISTIAN SACRIFICE 

T^HE ancient priests laid on the altar-stone 

Their sacrifice. And while the purpling flow 
Of blood ran hot from victims in the throe 
Of death — before the sacrificial throne 
They stood. Their voices rose in plaintive tone 
Beseeching gods to pity those below, 
And for their people's weight of sin and woe 
To let the dying creature's blood atone. 

The priests of Christ no bloody victims slay. 
Upon the whitened altar-cloth they bring 
Their regal Lord ; and then their prayers arise 
With lifted Host : " Wash Thou our sins away, 
And stay, O Christ, God's wrath ! " What offering 
Excels the grandeur of this sacrifice? 



130 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



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MOTHER OF SORROWS 

AIT" HAT sorrow e'er was like to thine, 
Dear Mother of our King divine ; 
Who keener felt a mother's loss 
Than thou, beneath the Savior's Cross ? 

Disconsolate thy sad eyes see 

The depth of thy son's misery ; 

The child you nursed, the son you bore, 

Hangs on the cross-tree drenched with gore. 

So comely once, so abject now. 
Foul Calvary's shame was on his brow — 
'Twas writ with lies, with hate and scorn, 
'Twas written on thy heart forlorn. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 13 1 

Thy baby-boy whose tender years 
Of winsome love allayed thy fears 
In virile strength, to manhood grown, 
His creature's curse must now atone. 

You felt His benedictions rife, 
You saw Him raise the dead to life. 
No love He spared to give relief — 
On either side now hangs a thief. 

We love thy sorrows, mother dear, 
We hallow every bitter tear. 
Thy Golgotha of pain and shame 
Has aureoled thy sacred name. 




32 sojvgs, sonnets and essays 




AN AWAKENING 

'T'HE rose bursts from her sepulchre of green, 

And flings her glowing petals to the breeze ; 
Her fragrance borne as from mild southern seas, 
Ascends like incense to her season's Queen. 
The song-thrush 'cross the scented meadows sheen 
Quickens his flight to the tall elm trees ; 
From thence to field and flower, — his devotees, 
He casts a liquid melody, unseen. 

So does my soul, on this resplendent morn, 
Burst like the prisoned rose from cerement-fold. 
And breathe to thy bright throne without dismay 
The simple fragrance of her life new-born. 
On restless, spreading wings, with joy untold. 
She soars and sings to thee, thou Queen of May. 



SOiVGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 133 




THE SANCTUARY LAMP 

T ONE watcher of the Sacrament, 

How constant is thy ray ; 
Thy flame is a mute testament 
Of Christ's abiding stay. 

The busy hours of toilsome strife 

Behold thy ruddy light ; 
The pulsing flicker of thy life 

Keeps vigil in the night. 



134 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

Ungrateful man, his captive king, 

Upon the altar spurns ; 
Thy gentle flame encrimsoning 

The sanctuary burns. 

Thy constant glow, within the lamp, 

Fidelity explains; 
Our sluggish hearts all bear the stamp 

That sloth offensive reigns. 

Fan into flame our tepid souls — 

Enkindle from above ; 
Make, Christ, our hearts bright burning coals 

Of tender, constant love. 

All through the day, yea, through' the night, 

Thy oil of love bestow ; 
Our souls own sanctuary light 

Shall then with fervor glow. 




SOJVGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 135 






m 



THE SILVER SHEAF 

(Respectfully dedicated to the Very Rev. L. F. Kearney, O.P., S.T.M., 
Provincial of the Province of- St. Joseph, upon the occasion of the celebra- 
tion of the Silver Jubilee of his Ordination to the Priesthood, Sept. 9, igoS.) 

D RIGHT shone the star on Dominic's brow in old 

Castile, and brighter burned the quenchless flame 
Of love throughout his life for Christ. His name, 
A solace to the poor within the fold, 
Cast fear and dread in hellish hearts whose cold 
And sensate teaching were their country's shame. 
Deep etched upon the golden scroll of fame 
His blessed life and works are aureoled. 

Well hast thou trod the footprints of thy sire 

And noble are the triumphs of thy reign. 

Sweet visaged Truth, our heritage, 'mid tears 

Of love thou taught to men, and quick thy ire 

Struck erring hearts who Truth assailed. Christ deign 

A blessing on thy silver sheaf of years. 



136 



SOA'GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 




THE SPIRITUAL DYNASTY 
OF PAIN 

T^VVO crowns to each are preferred in life's race ; 

Symbolic ease — the other, pain's disgrace ; 
The crown of gold — the sunlit hours show, 
The crown of thorns is typical of woe. 

The panting mass reach for the burnished crown, 
They seek the rose-strewn path and brief renown ; 
Affrighted by the poignant thorns of pain, 
With hastening steps they flee her iron reign. 

These crowns were offered to Sienna's saint, 
And both at length alluringly did paint ; 
The gold, — its tranquil days and sunny skies, 
The thorns, — its gall and myrrh of tearful eyes. 



SONGS, SOA'iVETS AND ESSAYS 137 

Her craft of life might sail on summer seas 
To care, oblivious, and with halcyon ease ; 
No fretful thoughts her lineaments could plow, 
While song and mirth with gold enwreathed her brow, 

Why choose the rapier thorns, each fraught with dole. 
The newer crucifixions of the soul ? 
Why stud her temples with these lance-like blades, 
And mantle all her days with sorrow's shades ? 

Intuitive she saw that gold's alloy 
Would sequent mar each vapid, mundane joy ; 
The spear-like thorns, though sanguinely impressed, 
She knew before the Savior's brow caressed. 

Oh, happy choice, that faith-illumined brought 
The crown of thorns with sacred memories fraught ; 
The prongs of grief enwreathed upon thy head, 
An added lustre from the Savior's shed. 

Seraphic child of Dominic, our Sire, 
Teach us the potency of suffering's fire ; 
And may each fetid blight of mortal stain 
Yield to the chastening dynasty of pain. 



38 SOA'GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



TO THE GARDEN OF HEAVEN 

(Dedicated to the memory of Joseph Arthur Lennon ; Classmate, B. C, 
1902 ; Died May 24, 191 1.) 

/^FT 'mid a garden's manifold display 

Some tender buds, unfolding to the light 
And charming by their loveliness of sight, 
The leisure steps of careful keepers stay ; 
A larger growth, a fresher bed to lay 
Their thirsting roots and stall the threatened blight 
Of arid days ; these anxious thoughts invite 
A newer earth, a moist and cooler clay. 

Thy fragrant bud of life's unblossomed flower 
Unfolded to the sun of youth's career. 
The Master gardener saw thy lilied soul 
And tenderly transplanted to His bower, 
The sunny skies and purer atmosphere 
Of Heaven are now thy terminated goal. 




.ik«i»;i 



SONGS, SOA^NETS AND ESSAYS 139 




LAZARUS 

T^HREE days the form, within the tomb, 

Of Lazarus decayed ; 
Three days the heavy pall of gloom 
Upon his sisters weighed. 

The lone companion of their years, 

By death left them bereaved ; 
The constant tribute of their tears 

Showed how his dear ones grieved. 



One gleam of hope illumed their mind, 
One pearly ray gave cheer ; 

The gentle Savior of mankind 
Would lift their shadows drear. 



I40 SOJVGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

His leisure moments oft were spent 

At Lazarus' side ; 
His sacred greetings oft were sent, 

And with them would abide. 



The sisters sped a messenger 

To tell of his demise ; 
And hope again, a harbinger, 

Lit up their saddened eyes. 

The Savior came at their behest — 

He visibly repined ; 
They asked Him but one fond request. 

His power they had divined. 



Without the tomb he stood alone, 
And bade his friend arise ; 

Away then rolled the massive stone, 
And grief turned to surprise. 



Forth Lazarus in cerement-fold, 

Came at the call divine ; 
His quickened soul thrilled to behold 

The Savior's face benign. 



SOA'GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 141 

The gentle tears the Savior shed, 

Welled from his doleful eyes ; 
These tender tributes for the dead 

His love immortalize. 

When e'er our souls to Christ are twdned, 

And sin then breaks the ties, 
His bitter tears an outlet find, 

His heart is filled with sighs. 

4» 4» 4» 

COME TO THY THRONE 

"\1 yiTH heavy hearts the holy couple went 

From unkind Bethlehem. Unsheltered there. 
Foot-sore they trod the hilly thoroughfare 
That led them to a rock-ribbed cave which lent 
Its cover for the night. Within, while bent 
Upon the hard and straw-strewn floor in prayer. 
The Virgin brought into the world an heir 
Whose loveliness outshone the firmament. 

I will not send Thee from my heart, dear Lord. 
This Christmas morn. And though I offer Thee 
The humble straw of fervent love whereon 
To place Thy form, my thoughts in sweet accord 
Shall keep Thy court. Come, gentle King, and see 
Where I have placed Thy throne to rest upon. 



142 



SONGS, SONA^ETS AND ESSAYS 




IN THE GARDEN OF 
HEART 



THE 



/^NE summer morn my listless foot-steps led 

Me to a rose. A zephyr broke its rest, 
And, from the fragrant chalice of its breast, 
A sweet aroma on my spirit shed. 
At eve, while yet the dying splendor spread 
Far out along the crimson-tinted west, 
I gazed upon a gently nodding crest 
Of pinks, and on their scented sweetness fed. 

Though sweet the slender waking rose distills 
Its fragrance at the dawn; though incense-fraught 
At eve, the drooping pink breathes on the air. 
Yet sweeter is the scent, I thought, which fills 
A meek and contrite human heart that's taught 
To cultivate the humble flowers of prayer. 



SO.VGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



143 




MILLERS AT LIFE'S STONE 

A^/E stand like millers at life's stone. 

The mental seed in springtime sown 
Autumnal days a fruitage brings, 
Then psychic revolution flings 
The ripe and whitened grain alone. 



How oft our seeds are choked with weeds 

Of nugatory thoughts and deeds ; 

And harvest days a sickly yield 

Take from the mind's ill-nurtured field, 

Whose noxious soil inanely breeds. 



144 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



Our mill of life is fed with grain, 
The guerdon of long years of pain ; 
As likewise with the fruit of sloth, 
The tares that zealous spirits loathe 
And careless, sluggish souls obtain. 

Feed then the stone with fruitful thought, 
Feed with each action kindly wrought, 
Restrain the chaff of empty speech, 
Supply the living acts which teach 
How earnest lives with deeds are fraught. 





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SOA'GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS I45 



THE SPICES OF A NEW LIFE 

A T Easter dawn the holy women sought 

The Savior's tomb with spices they had bought ; 
Affection's tribute made them seek the tomb, 
For on their souls yet hung the passion gloom. 

The One whose tranquil love had cheered each day, 
By death their widowed hearts filled with dismay ; 
No longer would they see His smile benign, 
No longer would they hear His words divine. 

Along the road with hastening steps and grieved, 
Their love's sweet labor from their King received 
The guerdon of His presence bright and fair — 
The influx of His benedictions rare. 

Let us bring fragrant spices to our King 
On Easter morn — let our Hosannas ring ! 
The sweet anointing from our risen Lord 
Shall be our gladsome Easter-tide's reward. 



146 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 




THE MONTH OF MAY 

\^7HO does not love the month of May, 
So sweetly decked in spring array ; 
When lilacs scent the tepid air, 
And restless birds send forth their prayer ? 

Who does not love, from sheltered nook, 
This time of year to watch the brook, 
And see its limpid waters flow 
As winding through the glen they go ? 



Who would not walk upon the lea, 
Or stroll beside the crested sea ? 
And gaze upon the crimson sky 
While pageantry of clouds pass by ? 



SONGS, SOAWETS AND ESSAYS 



147 



This month, whose ever hastening hour 
Is laden with the perfumed flower ; 
We cherish more because its sheen 
Is dedicated to our Queen. 

Our Queen, upon whose beaming face 
Shines forth the plentitude of grace ; 
Whose heav'nly Hps sweet words impart 
To sin-stained soul and heavy heart. 

We love thy month then, Mother dear, 
This gladdest time of all the year ; 
And just as music floods the Spring, 
To thee, our souls enraptured, sing ! 







SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



LIFE'S CALVARIES 

/^FT have our lips pressed friendship's cup 
^^^ And quaffed the nectared flow, 
Yet sad constraint led us to sup 
A latent myrrh below. 

The sunny hours of friendship's days 

Are tapestried with joy, 
The parting word, our heart dismays 

And pains with its alloy. 

The gladsome smile of genial friends 

Enriches while they're near, 
A fond farewell a tremor sends 

And palls our hearts with fear. 

The parting scenes a fitful gloom 

Casts on our dialed life. 
As transient shadows of the tomb 

Flit o'er a joyful strife. 

In currents warm our heart-blood thrills 

At friendship's proffered hand. 
The ruby tide insensate chills 

When chosen friends disband. 

The parting griefs are Calvaries 

Along life's pleasant marts ; 
Each cross is fraught with memories 

Of true and trusted hearts. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 149 




COMPANION OF OUR WAY 

piVCH fitful phase of earthly life 

A sweet companion holds ; 
In joy and grief, in every strife, 
Its succor ne'er withholds. 

Dear blessed beads, sweet Rosary, 

Our spirits love to stay 
Upon each storied mystery 

Of Christ's eventful way. 

When gladness wreathes our soul with smiles. 

And chases every fear, 
Each joyful mystery beguiles 

While hallowed scenes appear. 

From Gabriel's message to the hour 
When Christ, who strayed, was found, 

Each incident our hearts embower 
With praise and love profound. 



150 SOJVGS, SONNE 7'S AND ESSAYS 

The saddened hours of anxious days 

Disconsolate we find 
Until the bead's sweet cadenced lays 

Relieve our troubled mind. 

The Savior's bitter agony — 

His scourging, thorns and Cross. 

Restore our spirit's harmony, 
When grieved with pain or loss. 

When exultation thrills our heart, 

And joys ecstatic flow, 
We count Christ's triumphs each apart 

With prayerful minds aglow. 

The risen Lord we hail with love, 

The Paraclete acclaim ; 
We think of Mary's joys above, 

Her sanctity proclaim. 

Oh precious gift, thy jewelled beads 

Evoke sweet symphony ; 
We sing the King's and Mother's deeds 

Upon our Rosary. 



SO.VGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 151 



CONFIDENCE 

IT IGH on Thy Cross on Calvary, 

Thou heard the rabble's ribaldry ; 
With loathsome taunts they scorned Thy name, 
And gloried in Thy bitter shame. 

Thy miracles no credence gained — 
The motley crowd cursed unrestrained ; 
Each passing Scribe and Pharisee 
Maligned Thy sweet Divinity. 

The dying thief required no sign 
To tell his soul Thou wert divine ; 
Each lineament Thy Godhead proved, 
And hence his lips in prayer moved. 

He asked one favor from Thy hand. 
To be remembered in Thy land ; 
This trusting faith did then suffice 
To let him share Thy Paradise. 

When sorrow clouds thy mind with care, 
And pain and anguish teach despair. 
Seek thou the Savior for relief 
And emulate the dying thief. 



152 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 




THE VISION OF THE WEST 

\ 17 HEN hanging on Thy tree of shame, 

And scoffing ingrates cursed Thy name, 
Thy blood-shot eyes turned towards the West 
To seek a momentary rest. 



Thy work was spurned, Thy love refused, 
They held Thee criminal, accused, 
And while upon the Cross with pain, 
The rabble hurled their proud disdain. 



SOiVGS, SOAWETS AND ESSAYS 



53 



Vou saw the East ungrateful hold 
The memory of Thy passion old, 
The youthful West knelt at Thy feet, 
Enraptured with Thy Gospel sweet. 

In Thy sad hour upon the tree 

This vision cheered Thy agony, 

You saw fond hearts in newer lands, 

And blessed them with Thy out-stretched hands. 

Oh happy earth of this new world 
Where Christ's sweet banner is unfurled, 
The dying Savior did embrace 
Thy loved and faithful populace. 




54 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



LIFE'S TRUEST FRIEND 

\1 /"E treasure here the constant friend 

Whose love attends our strife, 
We follow where his footsteps tend 
To nobler things in life. 

In travail drear his words of cheer 

Console our heavy heart ; 
His gladsome smile dispels each fear, 

And spectral thoughts depart. 

Unswerving faith, inviolate 
In thought and living deed ; 

These golden traits ingratiate 
The friend we love to heed. 

Yet truest friend who ever trod 
The greensward of our earth ; 

Inconstant seems to man's own God, 
Who loved us ere our birth. 

Eternal ages in the womb 

Of time foresaw the love 
That trinal God, from crib to tomb, 

On man would shed above. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 155 

The natal day of Christ's career 

God's predilection showed ; 
Consummate love, on Calvary drear, 

For man, ensanguined flowed. 

From Golgotha the parting breath 

Of Jesus on the Cross 
Attested that the Savior's death 

Regained man's primal loss. 

Yet greater love for ransomed man 

Was left as testament. 
When Christ anew His life began 

Within the Sacrament. 

What greater love, the Scripture saith, 

To consecrate life's end. 
Than suffer shame, and pain, and death, 

For one embosomed friend. 

But mortal life did not suffice 

For Christ upon the rood ; 
His greater pledge than sacrifice 

Was flesh and blood as food. 

With regal love He dwells alone 

As sacramental king ; 
Each day upon the altar stone 

We see His offering. 



IS6 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

Incarnate God, enthuse my heart 
With deeper love for Thee ; 

Teach me to see the transient part 
Of human vanity. 

Give to my soul, dear Pelican, 
Thy nectared blood and flesh ; 

Remove each fell forbidding ban 
To Thy endeared caress. 

4» * 4» 

THE SYMPHONY OF THE 
SAINTS 

AIT" HAT glory in the heavenly sphere 

Reigns every All-Saints day, 
When neither pain nor grief nor tear 
Disturbs each joyful lay. 



The Patriarchs and Prophets old 
Recount God's triumphs o'er ; 

The staunch Apostles of Christ's fold 
Their dulcet hymns unfold. 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 157 

The Martyrs and Confessors fling 

Triumphant notes above ; 
The Uly band of Virgins sing 

Their canticles of love. 

A universal harmony 

The Saints fling from their lyres ; 
The vision of the Trinity 

Their raptured words inspires. 

This sacred convocation's hymn 

With ecstacy they raise ; 
The Savior's gentle love they limn 

And jubilantly praise. 

How dear the thought that one fond day, 

If faithful we remain, 
With Christ's own Saints we shall portray 

The glories of His reign. 

Live then, my soul, with noble thought — 

The Savior's foot-prints trace ; 
Strive that each daily action wrought 

May win Christ's sweet embrace. 



58 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 






THE BETTER QUEST 

T T OW madd'ning is the quest for gold, 

How ceaseless seek the young and old 
Our servile knees imprint the sod 
Before the fetish-altared god. 

Some think the maintenance of health 
Is bulwarked by amassing wealth ; 
Some think the evils of our span 
Are thwarted by this talisman. 



Omnipotent seems gold's fell power 
To buy the baubles of an hour ; 
A mamon greed demeans our age, 
And sordid is our vassalage. 



SONGS, SONA'ETS AND ESSAYS 159 

Assisi's saint the fetters broke, 
And sought a kind and gentler yoke ; 
The shackles fell, his soul was free, 
When coyly came sweet poverty. 

No anxious cares then filled his mind — 
Earth's brittle joys were left behind ; 
Denuded of the tinselled ore, 
His chastened spirit learned to soar. 

The living Christ upon the earth. 
Taught poverty e'en from His birth ; 
He blessed when on the mount apart. 
The meek, the low, the poor of heart. 

Emancipated from wealth's thrall, 
St. Francis sought Christ as his all ; 
The broken idol of earth's greed 
Acclaimed the glory of his deed. 

Our spirits free from lucre's taint, 
Thy prayers preserve, seraphic saint ; 
Teach us to spurn gold's sordid quest — 
Within Christ's heart may we find rest. 



l6o SOA'GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



MY IDOL 

pROUD Rome bent captive to the chiseled form 

Of Venus. Charming in her symmetry, 
Her cult was but a shameless revelry — 
Man's latent, seething passions to transform. 
The Greeks round Aphrodite once did swarm, 
Both cultured chief and simple laity. 
To celebrate her grace with pageantry, 
While happy soul and pulsing heart grew warm. 

My heart and mind a nobler idol hold 

Than goddess from a Greek or Roman shore ; 

On sun-kissed brows bright threads of silver hover. 

And love-lit eyes a gleam of heaven unfold ; 

Her mantling cheek and features I adore, 

And call her by the sweetest name of — Mother. 



SOJVGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS i6i 



THE GUERDONED BRIDES OF 
CHRIST 



(Suggested upon seeing the Little Cemetery at St. Mary's of the Springs, 
Columbus, Ohio, where the Sisters of St. Dominic are buried.) 



O LEEP, gentle spouses of the Lord 
Sleep, in your peaceful mounds ! 
Keep, as your ceaseless vigil rounds, 
Your hope and sweet accord. 



Full many a day your chastened feet 
The Savior's foot-prints trod ; 

Full many a day the Virgin sweet, 
Enflamed your hearts for God. 

Your graves are jew^elled with the tears 

Of faithful friends and true. 
And memories of your love-fraught years 

Sweet friendship's voice renew. 

Your tender days of virginhood, 

Like scented flowers of love. 
You twined around the sacred rood 

And sought your Spouse above. 



62 SONGS. S0AWE7S AND ESSAYS 

How oft did erring children cease 
Their evil trend of days, 

And by your words of lov^e and peace 
Amend their sinful ways. 

Your nectared words of eloquence, 

With gentle, loving art. 
Revealed God's sweet omnipotence 

To many a saddened heart. 

With gifted tongue the tragic price 
Of Christ you oft proclaimed ; 

You preached the thrilling sacrifice 
And tepid hearts enflamed. 

True daughters of our saintly sire, 

Your life and work attest 
That Jesus, 'mid His heavenly choir, 
Has guerdoned you with rest. 

Sleep, gentle Sisters of the Springs ! 

Sleep in your lilied gowns ! 
Your sacrificial conquest brings 

The vision of your crowns. 



SOiVGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 163 



THE HEM OF HIS 
GARMENT 

'X'O - DAY the skeptics of the world unheed 
The true and sacred tenets of our creed ; 
The demonstrations of their sense demand 
Proof palpable before they understand. 

The rule, the canon of their minds upholds 
What ears and eyes and taste and touch unfolds ! 
Criterions like these are deified — 
What comes not in their scope is vilified. 

Assent to truths revealed by God's decree, 
Assent unquestioned in the Trinity, 
We grant, because the intellect of man 
Fails God's eternal verities to scan. 

How nobly does the Gospel tell the tale — 
How nobly did one woman's faith prevail ! 
To touch His garment at the hem sufficed 
To win her favor from the living Christ. 



164 



SOA'GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



" Thy faith hath made thee whole/' the Savior said 
At once the iUness of her years was fled ; 
Unflinching faith unto her had revealed 
That those who trust in God are always healed. 

The ages sing thy praise, triumphant soul, 
They see upon thy brow Faith's aureole ; 
The mists of doubt through faith now evanesce, 
A deeper trust in Christ thy name doth bless. 




SOA^GS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 165 



THE KINGLY GUEST 

T T OSANNAS rang with loud acclaim ! 

Hosannas rang for Christ's sweet name ; 
The people sang their gladsome psalms — 
The Savior's path was strewn with palms. 



Triumphant through the city gate, 
Triumphant rode our King in state ; 
Exultant voices in accord 
Sang sweet Hosannas to their Lord. 



In glorified humanity 
To-day Christ comes with pageantry 
Cherubic hosts attend and sing 
Before our Sacramental King. 



To those who seek Christ's banquet hall, 
The splendors of His feast enthrall ; 
The honied Bread of Life imparts 
A vital strength to Christian hearts. 



i66 



SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



Strew palms of love, strew flowers of prayers, 
Let glad Hosannas pierce the air ! 
When from the altar of His throne 
Christ comes to dwell with you alone. 

His path unto your heart should be 
The perfumed road of sanctity; 
Hymn then your praise, let love attest 
The welcome for your Kingly Guest. 




SONGS, SOAWETS AND ESSAYS 167 




|l 




THE FLEETING BREATH OF 
FAME 

TTOW transient is the glory of a name, 

How fleeting is the fickle breath of fame ; 
Commemorative shafts of bronze soon rust, 
The storied monuments return to dust. 

Some seek renown upon the fields of blood, 
Yet others seek upon the sapphire flood ; 
Some in the halls of science and of art — 
A greater host along the busy mart. 



Enduring fame, man seeks in every strife,- 
He deems it adds a lustre to his Hfe ; 
Oblivion's dreaded shades his spirit palls, 
To live enshrined in other minds, enthralls. 



1 68 



SOJVGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



With futile strength we labor for renown, 

That future years our memory may crown ; 

Our Titan deeds, though gold-penned, men may trace, 

Time's own corroding finger shall efface. 

Live then in thought, in action and in deed — 
Not for the world's brief, perishable meed ; 
Enhance each work as onwardly you plod. 
By consecrating to your risen God. 




SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 



169 




REST 

\A 7HAT seek the denizens of earth, 

What seek they as their labor's worth ? 
Each votary with heart elate, 
His soul with peace would satiate. 

The mammon worshippers appease 
Their craving with a moneyed ease ; 
The eager satellites of fame 
Seek glory in the world's acclaim. 



Each cherished goal of human life 
Is guerdoned by incessant strife ; 
We deem the travail of each quest 
Is laurelled by a halcyon rest. 



I70 SONGS, SONNETS AND ESSAYS 

But peace of heart and peace of mind 
We worldly sycophants ne'er find ; 
When once we think our hopes attained, 
With restiveness our souls are pained. 

Ephemeral is earthly joy, 
Each human pleasure bears alloy ; 
Our thirsting spirits strive to take 
Insipid draughts that never slake. 

In God alone we find our boon, 
In Him alone our spirits swoon ; 
Our restive hearts their longings cease, 
Enbalmed in Christ's unending peace. 




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